BCHS creates student-run website, relaunches long-defunct student newspaper

In this day and age, children are learning how to use, run and build computers at a much younger age than did their parents, who may have had one computer class offered while in high school.

The kids at BCHS have taken things to a new level with the school’s new student-run website, which was unveiled earlier this school year.

The Eagle Press is part of the school’s publications class, which not only includes the new website but the yearbook and a newly-relaunched school newspaper, which hasn’t existed in at least 25 years. All three elements of the class are oversee by teacher/advisor Joanna Strachan.

The concept of the website started last year when now editor-in-chief Abby Francis was searching online for something related to student council. There, she came across a student-run website from a school in New Mexico.

“I showed Mrs. Strachan and thought it would be a fun idea,” she said.

BCHS ended up using the same company that runs the website for that New Mexico school as they do their own.

“That company is specifically geared just toward school websites,” Strachan said. “They don’t do websites for anyone else other than schools and student-run news. After Abby found it and brought it to me, I had a conversation with the company as to how we could build ours and it took off from there.”

Strachan said this past spring was when the school decided to bring the newspaper back and after that is when Francis came to her with the website idea.

“We thought the website would be a great companion to the newspaper,” said Strachan, a BCHS grad who was her newspaper’s editor. “We went from there and dove in — the deep end.”

The publications class has two separate staffs. One works on the yearbook, which has two editors, and the rest the newspapers/website.

“It’s been very stressful,” Francis said in terms of creating two new projects. “But it’s also been fun.”

She gets assistance from her head editor, Bethannie Carranza, who is a junior. Both she and Francis were on the yearbook staff last year so they came into this with some publication experience.

“The website has been pretty easy,” Carranza said. “But the newspaper has been kind of hard because a lot of people aren’t sure what to do but they have figured it out.”

The website is filled with an array of features, upcoming events, opinion pieces and photos, all of which come from the student staff. Some of the content on the website will appear in the newspaper and vice versa. But they said moving forward, they hope each will have its own unique content and identity.

While Strachan does look at everything that goes on the site, she said she leaves it up to the staff for its content.

“The three of us will sit down and decide what will go on the website and in the newspaper,” Strachan said. “I have total faith in these two. Right now, I’m assigning who is going to do what until they become a little more familiar with the whole process. I give them my thoughts but they brainstorm and decide content and layout. It’s a student site so I want it to be from a student perspective and not from a staff perspective.”

The student website is much different than the school’s official one. It focuses on staff, how the school functions, sports and event schedules. BCHS is just one of a handful of high schools in the Clark County School District that has a student-run website.

“I love the idea of a student-created website about our school because there are so many things happening here,” Principal Amy Wagner said. “I love it. I also love the idea of the school once again having a newspaper. I love that the tradition is coming back. We’ve always had a yearbook since 1941 but having the newspaper back is a very nice addition.”