With many changes happening around the Windsor School District this summer, the Yearbook and Newspaper class will get their own improvements as well. In order to create stories for The Hoot and pages for the yearbook, the staff of both these classes work in a publication’s room. This room has several computers, a white board, and a large table. However, much of the space is outdated. Luckily, that is about to change. 

Yearbook adviser JoAnn Marty said, “We are looking to build a more collaborative space. We are getting rid of the island, and putting in a media table, and a promethean panel so kids can screencast their images onto that. We are going to have televisions running with international, national, local news, and sports.We are putting pod areas and soft seating, so it’s more of a working together space.”

“Our room will be the place to be during March Madness,” newspaper adviser Jeff Stoffey jokingly said. “But on a serious note, this room will now feel like an actual newsroom. I think it will have a really positive impact on both of our classes.”

Newspaper and Yearbook work hard all year long to make sure their stories and the yearbook are finished by a certain deadline. This coming November, the classes will be taking a trip to Chicago to receive more training at the Journalism Education Association National Convention. 

Marty said, “We will be going to classes to train to become better in our skill set. We will learn some tasks like how to take better pictures and write better stories. What I’m most excited about is that we are going to be with schools from all over the world and receive ideas from new places.”

In order to be a part of newspaper or yearbook, Jeff Stoffey and JoAnn Marty put a lot of thought into who is going to be a part of their staff.

“We look at their English grade and also to see what they are involved in. We try to make sure we have a diverse group of people,” said Marty.

Although some people think that these classes are laid back and easy, there is a significant amount of hard work and dedication that goes into creating stories and pages.

“I’m very proud of my staff. They have been an award winning staff for several years and this year again they are one of the top ten percent (for Balfour) yearbooks in the country. They work really hard,” said Marty.

Both staffs are looking forward to the updated room next school year. 

Marty said, “I’m really excited to see how the kids learn to manipulate that space and make it work for them.”