Colleges

Cal State Northridge is the local four-year college and has a well-respected journalism program. Four teachers who received the TIIP grant visited CSUN to tour their broadcasting and cinema/film studios so we can get an idea of what we want our high school program to look like.

CSUN's journalism program also has Media Mentors, who are graduating seniors who spend an hour each week at a local high school working with the newspaper staff. This year, the two media mentors we had each semester worked with the students on improving the quality of the news videos as well as helping with the layout and design of the newspaper.

Local Newspapers

This year, we had three members of the Los Angeles Times photography department visit our campus at least once a month to give the newspaper and yearbook staff pointers on shooting better photographs. The three volunteers gave the students assignments that ranged from taking portraits, to shooting sports and creating soundslides. These assignments assured that all students, whether they were writers, editors or photographers,earned the skills to be multi-media journalists. Now all the students not only know how to write a story, they can all take quality photographs and put a soundslide or audioslide together. You can see one of the soundslides created by a yearbook staff writer here on the online site of the school newspaper, The Pearl Post.

We also had newspaper reporters visit the campus to speak to the newspaper staff as well as to the Journalism 1 students. Los Angeles Times staff writer Kevin Baxter, who covers sports, stopped in several times throughout the year to give the newspaper staff one-on-one help with their stories.

Collaborative Groups

Our journalism students are now part of the Los Angeles Unified School District Journalism Collaborative, a group of advisers and newspaper staffs that meet monthly to hear speakers or share ideas or problems with their publications. This non-profit group also provides some funding for student activities. The collaborative hosts write-offs for the student journalists. The collaborative paid for registration for students to attend a national high school journalism convention in April 2011. This group also paid for contest entry fees to the Los Angeles Press Club 2012 awards, which named our school newspaper the best high school newspaper. Click here to read a story on the award.

Foundations

Our journalism students have benefited from the help of two foundations during the past two years. The Daniel Pearl Foundation has a journalism program where students can take an online course and become certified to be a reporter for the Pearl Youth News. This gives our students another platform to have their work published. Students write a story that has an angle that can appeal to people across the country and the world. Here is a story that one of our students wrote about budget cuts to education

The Sherry Lansing Foundation has provided our school with volunteers who not only help students improve their English language skills but also volunteers who come in and work one-on-one with the newspaper staff. One of this foundation's volunteers from the PrimeTime LAUSD mentors program volunteers about once a month to help the newspaper writers with their leads and organization of their stories. He is a retired staff writer for the Los Angeles Times and shares a lot of his stories from his newspaper days with the students.