Guardian looks to grow throughout future years

Staff Editorial

The journalism program here originated with the inception of the school itself, and through the years has featured the distinct styles of different newspaper staffs and advisers. Ethically providing the school with information, while having fun every once and a while, is what the program exists to do, but the future of The Guardian is in crisis. That’s right. This article is about us.

Staff Editorial

At its peak, the journalistic writing program numbered more than 100 students in four different sections of the class. Each paper distributed would be up to 24 pages long and would feature as many stories as possible. The program annually won top awards from local, state, national and international competitions. Individual students won many awards as well. Today, there are only 10 students in the class with just a handful of contributing writers. Juniors and seniors at the school may have even noticed that the length of the paper has dropped from 14 or 16 pages to 10 or 12 pages in the last few years alone. So what happened?

One of the leading factors in the decline of enrollment in the class is that it is considered

neither an English credit nor a fine arts credit any more. While we can assure those interested in the class that it would vastly improve their writing skills, we understand the concerns of students who would rather take a class that provides a credit toward their graduation requirements.

What many don’t realize about The Guardian is that it is designed completely by the newspaper staff. We don’t outsource the paper to a company. While the paper is printed by Son’s Enterprises, the design work, comparable to that of a graphic arts or web design class, is taught and completed within the school on deadline nights.

In addition to being discouraged from the get go, several of us in the class were unaware, initially, that the journalistic writing course is the school paper. Perhaps further clarification for incoming freshman could be put in place.

The Guardian, like nation attire and sporting events, is something that we take pride in as a school. We urge the counselors and administration to reconsider the status of the journalism program, lest it diminish further in the next few years.