School Life News (SLN) is a journalism program for students in grades 3-12, created to fill a vacuum in under-served communities where school budgets and narrowing curricula have forced the closure of these invaluable programs. 

Long gone in many of our schools, especially those in our inner cities and remote rural districts, is the school newspaper.  And along with the loss of these chronicles of daily school life is an opportunity to nurture the critical skills that students learn and practice in researching, writing and publishing them.

The purpose of School Life News is to teach students how to research, interview, write, edit, publish and distribute their own newspaper or newsletter—skills that contribute to literacy.  

Working in partnership with schools and/or community organizations, School Life News will provide the curriculum, instructional materials and, as needed, computers and Internet connections to anyone who wants to bring a journalism program to their schools, neighborhood or community.   In addition, SLN will recruit teachers and professional journalism advisors as well as provide training, guidance and oversight at all stages of the program. 

With a well-designed and professionally implemented journalism program for elementary-, middle-, and secondary-school students, School Life News will:

1. Improve student reading skills with the crucial knowledge-based learning that journalism offers.

2. Build useful career skills that can be applied to a multitude of educational and occupational pursuits.

3. Increase school and civic engagement by encouraging students to learn about school, local, and global affairs.

Watch the short video below of Paul Tudor Jones, billionaire hedge fund manager and co-founder of the Robin Hood Foundation, to hear his advice for people who want to succeed in business:  Take a journalism class.  He asserts that writing as a newspaper journalist helps someone become a better problem-solver because it requires synthesizing a complex problem.