High School Newspaper Story Ideas

A school newspaper not only provides students and parents with up-to-date news and bulletins but also includes longer in-depth features. A well-produced and edited newspaper highlights individual student and school successes. It also fosters a sense of community. Many school newspapers strive to be interactive and to profile the students' own ideas and experiences. While high school newspapers can vary in terms of article ideas, designs of the front page, inclusions of current events and local news stories, many are similar in terms of what they produce for the school community. While writing articles for the school paper may come as a hard task for some student staff members, these papers are flexible for student journalists to grow into the field of journalism.

Ideal topics to include in the newspaper's news pages are recent sports achievements, such as the school basketball team winning a league game. Other possible items to include are individual student or class success stories, such as reaching the Intel Science competition finals. Snippets about changes to school policy, forthcoming events, field trips and fundraising stories are also good news choices. A newspaper reporter could also include stories about important visitors and awards ceremonies. Newspaper articles focusing around specific student life or student body activities can also be interesting for the high school student readers as they read the school paper on campus.

A school newspaper's features section is an opportunity for creativity. Topical features could include school efforts toward becoming "green," including recycling. Some of the features should address students' emotional needs. For instance, topics such as "how to prevent bullying" and "when to seek counseling" could help many students. Other feature ideas include profiling a teacher, custodian or the principal, or doing a broader story on different embarrassing moments from students or staff in their school careers. Features can also address concerns such as budgetary effects on the school. Social media or apps are often a great place to search for feature stories within upcoming events or other trending stories online. Features can also be human interest stories that focus on specific subjects of importance that deal with overall school policies, school district events or different school sports events.

The section on arts should include a mix of reviews of new books, movies and music of interest to the students. Profiles of local bands, particularly if some of the students are members, would be a good choice. This section could also focus on the school's choir, drama and poetry societies and include comments from the students. Interviews with local artists, writers and musicians are other options for the arts section. This section could also include short stories and poems by students.

The sports section enables the newspaper reporters to record individual and team successes, such as swimmers progressing to the state finals. Features on sports could focus on training and preparation techniques. Individual stories, such as a female senior student who becomes a karate teacher, would fit well in this section. Comment pieces, predicting success and evaluating the competition, are suitable in this section. Inspirational stories from local sporting heroes would also interest students. Sports stories can also include interesting stories relating to the school mascot or certain sports teams events with school rivalries.