BUILDING OUR TEAM
When I first joined the Patriot Post staff, there were only 11 staffers. With just a few of us, I truly relied on the guidance of my last Editor-in-Chief, Irene John, to guide me in just general aspects of newspaper.
When it came my turn to become editor, Zoe (my print counterpart) and I took it upon ourselves to recruit as many staffers as possible so we could expand the Patriot Post not only in staffers but in writing more articles and more subscribers. In order to do this, we took a two-pronged approach: emailing potential newspaper candidates and airing a video on the morning announcements. Additionally, as we had a large graduating class from newspaper in 2024, we needed to re-build our staff from just four staffers.
I wrote over 150 emails to underclassmen encouraging them to join newspaper. I sent out these emails to students their English teachers had recommended, as well as other well accomplished and driven students I knew across campus.
Here is the video Zoe and I created, filmed, and edited that aired on the junior high announcements to encourage incoming freshman to join newspaper.
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We tried to highlight some amazing aspects of the course, including its honors class status, having dedicated class time to work on our articles, and an overall improvement in English and writing skills.
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The Google Form we created got over 40 responses, and out of those responses, over 75% said they might or will join the class. Now, we have 13 new staffers compared to our 4 seasoned staffers. This led to a very new staff with lots of training needed. It also showed how much our staff expanded due to our efforts.
TESTIMONIALS
Hear from some of my staffers over how I've helped them grow
Our Staff
Our Family <3
National Scholastic Press Association
Homecoming Dance
District 7 FSPA Workshop
Diversity of Staffers
Our staff comes from a high school where Asian and White are the predominant races. Our staff comes from areas all over the world, from Dubai to Honduras to even Kazakhstan. Most of our staff are second-generation immigrants, with some even being first-generation from China and Russia.
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We make sure to feature our diversity in publications; for example, we often discuss our love for different foods in class and have even combined it into an article.
In the last three years of the Patriot Post, we have had a total of two boys on the staff of iPatriotPost. This year, we took extra care to promote our newspaper class to not only females, but males as well.
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While we love female empowerment, we believe having more male staffers on our team can help us increase our overall diversity of coverage. As an all-female staff my sophomore year, we often struggled with featuring men, as most of us were friends with females. I am proud to have helped increased the ratio to make our class more co-ed, as a reflection of our school's student body itself.
Team Building
One last, and extremely important, part of being an editor is to help create a team that love and support each other. This is something that has always been of emphasis in our newsroom, and I hoped to continue as editor.
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We have a tradition every year to celebrate all of our staffers birthdays with a cake (or ice cream if they prefer that). The whole staff sings happy birthday to the birthday boy/girl. This photo is of Nicholas Kwok from the 2023-2024 staff. ​​
Another fun tradition my advisor Ms. Adams has done over the years is decorate her classroom with decorations for the seasons. This year, however, I took it upon myself to help decorate the classroom for the holidays with my fellow staffers as a team-building exercise. Read more about it here.
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​Every year we do a Newspaper Secret Santa. This year, I took over as Editor and organized the event by using the website drawnames.com. Below are some photos of the gifts we got!
Last but not least, we also participate in class activities and surveys. This year, we wrote articles about the staff's favorite candy, MBTI type, and most recently, we tried 4 different chocolate chip cookies (Crumbl, Blueprint, Midnight, Night Owl) and had to rank them.
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These staff building exercises help us foster healthy debate and keep the opinions flowing in the newsroom. They also help keep our staff united and feel like true friends and family. It helps us share stories and learn more about each other and the world in general.
Here are the cookies we ranked.
