West Lauderdale Elementary students launch school newspaper

West Lauderdale Elementary School students established their first student newspaper after Fourth grade student Elizabeth Bailey read The Laundry News.

“It’s about a class that starts a newspaper and I thought, well it’s a good book and so I thought well what would happen if I started a newspaper, or my class started a newspaper and so I gathered a few friends, and then more people wanted to join and so I said alright.”

Bailey and her classmates will be the first to set the record for future school journalist and says she is very emotional.

“It’s surreal, it’s cool, I can’t describe it I’m excited.”

Bailey also says starting fresh as future editors leaves plenty of room to report on all kinds of school activities.

“I want to cover some Christmas stuff, and we have a drawing contest.”

Bailey is not alone; she has support from other students to keep the paper filled with content.

“I assigned people what they’re good at , I have one person that’s good at jokes and sarcasm, so I assigned him to comics, and then there’s some people that like to do interviewing and going around talking to people about what they do, and a lot of people have siblings that play sports, and so I said hey; do you want to do sports?”

West Lauderdale Elementary teacher Cathy Gordon adds that launching a student newspaper for the first time is not easy and has challenges, but she is there for the students when they are in need of assistance.

“The layout of the paper was something that was a little challenging, the way that we had to print it, I stepped in to help there. MS. Atkinson had a board laid out that we all helped."

Fourth Grade language arts teacher Misty Atkinson says the paper helps students improve in their academics and their social skills.

“It helps them to see hey some of the things that we are learning in the classroom are needed and very useful skills.”