DIRECT LINES
Grant Keeps 'Falls' Running
The Cannon Falls (Minn.) High School newspaper is still running, thanks to an NAA Foundation seed grant. And it's not the only such example
by Sandy Woodcock
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"W e wouldn’t have a [school] newspaper if it hadn’t been for the NAA Foundation grant,” says Cannon Falls (Minn.) High School newspaper adviser Ellen Austin. “It single-handedly kept us alive.”
Austin attributes much of the newspaper’s success – in September 2003 an issue from its grant year (2002-2003) received a Best of Show award from the Minnesota High School Press Association – to the “freedom the grant gave us to do what we needed to do. We sent a couple of students to NSPA summer workshops and had money for publishing. We were able to go from hand paste-up to computer design,” she says.
This is the eighth year that grants have been awarded by NAA Foundation to proposals for creating a student newspaper where none exists, or stabilizing and strengthening newspapers at risk of being shut down. More than 140 schools have benefited from the partnerships that require newspapers and secondary schools to commit to working together.
An example of this partnership has been the efforts of a newspaper partner, The Cannon Falls (Minn.) Beacon, and editor/publisher Dick Dalton. Dalton, a Cannon Falls High School alumnus, showed up at Austin’s first after-school newspaper meeting.
Dalton says the school’s newspaper had been “off and on for a long time,” and curiosity prompted him to attend that first meeting. He thought he might be able to provide a bit of help, maybe get some of the students to think of journalism as a profession.
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"It single-handedly kept us alive." |
What he found were students he termed “gems.” Students who Dalton says were so excited about the prospect of having a school newspaper, they “got me excited about it.”
The idea to “restart” the newspaper at Cannon Falls began to germinate in Austin’s brain in the fall of 1999 when she began teaching at the high school. Austin was surprised that the school didn’t have a student newspaper.
So she decided to try to change that for the fall of 2000. She put together a proposal to her school principal and mined her classes for talent and interest. She got her principal to commit to funding one issue and her first after-school “Lantern” meeting netted her a “crew of about half a dozen kids,” plus Dalton.
Working totally after school that first year, Austin and her students put out one-four page newspaper, “cut and pasted at the local newspaper,” Austin says.
But funds are tight at Cannon Falls High School – only one other school district in the state receives less funding. Austin’s proposed budget was slashed, and she received only $500 of the $3,000 she requested.
Dalton read about the NAA Foundation Student/Newspaper Partnership grant program in one of the trade publications he reads and brought it to Austin’s attention, agreeing to be the newspaper partner.
“Without him we wouldn’t have anything going,” Austin says. “He’s been great. He’s sort of the grandfather of our newspaper.”
Austin applied for the grant, but school was out before grant winners were notified. The arrival of the grant check in August revived the paper and the spirits of its staff.
Still, the grant money was limited, and Austin knew that they would have to find a way to raise their own funds. Selling advertising was the logical next step, but the district’s school board said they weren’t allowed to sell ads.
Austin and her staff challenged that decision. With assistance from her newspaper partner and others, she developed a business plan, winning the right to sell ads for one school year. The school will have to go back to the Board for permission in future years, but Austin is optimistic.
“The NAA Foundation grant fueled the students’ belief in themselves,” she says. “It told them that others believe they could live up to expectations. And it provided us with credentials with the School Board during our battle to get them to allow us to take ads.”
This year, Austin says, ad sales are going “swimmingly.” The receipt of an NAA Foundation Young Publishers Grant will assist them in completing the development of their business plan and permit them to lessen the time between issues from its current 8-to-12 weeks to 4-to-6 weeks.
More than 80 of the 100 student newspapers that received grants in the first four years of the program, which began in 1997, continued to publish two years after they received the grant. All signs point to the Lantern adding to that trend. |