Students publish first issue of school paper for new term
What do you do when your newspaper staff gets cut down from 20 to five? Just ask Shelter Island students who published The Inlet this week, the first issue of the new school year.Editor Kelly Colligan described it as a “last minute cram” with most staffers writing several stories to fill the 12-page paper, instead of being able to concentrate on one or two.
“We made deadlines for ourselves,” said English teacher and school newspaper adviser Devon Treharne.
Ms. Colligan, a 16-year-old junior and 17-year-old senior, Cameron Clark, picked up the papers at the Reporter office Thursday morning to distribute to their fellow students. It was Ms. Clark who wrote the cover story about the transition from former Superintendent Michael Hynes to Superintendent Leonard Skuggevik.
Because there wasn’t a lot of news to report so early in the school year, the young journalists concentrated on profiles of new staff members and students.
Ms. Colligan wrote an editorial questioning a new policy that prohibits use of cell phones in the building except when specific faculty members allow them as teaching tools.
Ms. Colligan said that while she has had a cellphone for several years, she never abused the policy and thought students should be allowed to use their phones during lunch breaks.
“Those of us who have used our cellphones appropriately throughout the year are found to be treated like children toward the end of our high school career,” Ms. Colligan wrote.
Both students have been involved with The Inlet in previous years and Ms. Clark said she thought she would like to continue to pursue work on a college paper next fall.
For Ms. Colligan, it will be another year in high school before she thinks ahead to what the future might hold. But this summer, she participated in Stony Brook University’s Institute for High School Journalists started by Robert Greene Jr. in 2013. Students in the residential program were taught by professional journalists to use video and to report, write and edit stories for use on a blog.
Back to school this fall, the students’ focus is to balance their studies with producing the next issue of The Inlet and to recruit more staff members, Ms. Treharne said.
Other staffers this years are Tristan Wissemann, Peter Knopf and Kenna McCarthy.
