Starting a club is something that I never thought that I would do in high school, much less a newspaper. At the beginning of all of this, I wasn’t sure how successful this might be. However, with an average of nearly 320 views per month, I’d say we’ve been pretty successful. This has been an amazing first year for The Spartan Oracle. Throughout this first year, all of the newspaper staff, including myself, have learned so much about consistent writing, sticking to a schedule, being corrected and critiqued from editors, and working as a team to get stuff done. Furthermore, we are constantly working to improve The Spartan Oracle, with our staff always giving us new ideas to implement in order to make it better.
There are several people who I’d like to thank who helped make this happen. Firstly, my co-editor, Hailey Holden. Without Hailey, The Spartan Oracle would not have been able to function to the level that it has today. Hailey has truly been incredible in this process, making sure that every story is checked before uploading them to the website and always reaching out to writers to make sure they are doing well. I would also like to thank the New Caney ISD Digital Learning Team, who has been our district-level guidance from day one. Mr. Condarco, Dr. Slaydon, and Ms. Guillotte have also been incredibly helpful making sure that everything is good from a school perspective. Finally, I would like to thank Ms. Key and Mr. Willke. From the very first day, they have had to deal with my constant emails, crazy new ideas, and fast-moving mindset. I can’t thank them enough for their consistent support and guidance, as without them, I wouldn’t have had a clue on where to start.
The school administration and staff have been extremely supportive throughout our whole journey. Ms. Hons, our assistant principal for the House of Business and Criminal Justice, always emails me with information that I can add to the website, which I absolutely love because it broadens the content that we have on our site, making it more useful for students. Other teachers have also emailed me and talked to me about how they love reading our stories each month, which is really nice to hear as it’s not just students reading our content.
We have some fun plans for next year, such as a site redesign, an increased presence on social media, and hopefully a class period. We appreciate all of the support so far, and will continue to strive to be the best.
