The number of high schools in the U.S. with school newspapers dropped nearly 20% from 2011 to 2021. But students in some districts are launching or reinventing newspapers and magazines, mostly online.
Battle Ground Public Schools in Washington is one such district. Students at Prairie High School run the Falcon Flyer; Battle Ground High School has the Tiger Times; and at Tukes Valley Middle School, a student with a small team launched a districtwide newsmagazine called Your Battle Ground Public Schools (Your BGPS).
We talk with the editor of the Falcon Flyer, Kennedy Tandrow, a junior at Prairie High, and Rye Geilenfeldt, the managing editor and founder of Your BGPs.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed using AI and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. There was a 20% drop in the number of school newspapers in U.S. high schools from 2011 to 2021. That mirrors a major decline in the outside world. But some young people in Battle Ground Public Schools in Southwest Washington are pushing against this tide. Last year, Rye Geilenfeldt, a student at Tukes Valley Middle School, launched a districtwide news magazine called Your Battle Ground Public Schools [Your BGPS]. Kennedy Tandrow is a junior at Prairie High School and the editor of the Falcon Flyer, the school paper. They both join me now. It’s great to have both of you on Think Out Loud.
Kennedy Tandrow: Thank you.
Rye Geilenfeldt: Hello. Thank you very much.
Miller: Rye, I understand that the idea for YBG[P]S, Your Battle Ground Public Schools, came when you ran across an old newspaper insert focused on the district. Why did you want to revive this?
Geilenfeldt: Yes, when I was in sixth grade, I was in my school’s yearbook program. One day after we had finished the yearbook, I was bored, and I was just scrolling through an old district website archive. I discovered a PDF document of an old district insert that ran in the local newspaper, The Reflector. I had grown up reading The Reflector newspaper. So it just kind of showed me that there could be this connection between not only a single school, but the district and journalism.
I have always enjoyed photography and photojournalism, and the idea of being able to tell the stories of other students. As a student in this district, I just see some of the amazing things that people my age, older and younger, are doing every single day. But also, I see how sometimes those stories are just looked over by adult district communicators, no matter how hard they try, or adult journalists running local publications. So I felt I was uniquely qualified as a student to introduce a unique idea of a districtwide, student-led news magazine focusing on the accomplishments of students in our district.
Miller: You had this idea. How did you get buy-in, a green light from the district?
Geilenfeldt: OK, so immediately after I discovered this insert, I didn’t even know what I wanted this project to be, but I knew I wanted it to be a project. So I immediately took it to my sixth grade history teacher, Mr. Heasley, and said that I think this could be something really cool. He said, “I think it could be too, however, it is almost the end of the school year, so it might not get picked up,” because this was April 2025. But instead of taking the reasonable route, which is considering the district is really busy and it is the end of the year, I took it to my yearbook advisor, Amy Hanson. Mrs. Hanson and I worked together, and put together a project proposal that we sent off to the district with only 10 weeks of the school year left.
We scheduled the meeting via Zoom, discussed it, and they gave us the green light to begin recruiting other students to help put this together. They didn’t fully say that they were confident that the publication would turn out. But they said that they were giving us the green light to try. Immediately, I reached out to friends and acquaintances from my school, Tukes Valley Middle School, River HomeLink, and Battle Ground Virtual Academy. Myself, along with 12 other students, in less than a month, put together the full first issue. So by the time that district communicators could really check in to see our progress, we had nearly a finished final product to show them.
Miller: As I understand, you’re now three issues in, right? I want to hear more about your experiences there. But as I mentioned, Kennedy Tandrow is with us as well, a junior at Prairie High School, and now this year, the editor of the school newspaper, the Falcon Flyer.
Kennedy, what got you interested in working on the school newspaper?
Tandrow: I have always been interested in journalism. I’ve heavily grown up around it. My mom was always watching the news, always reading a newspaper or something. I feel like that’s a very much lost concept within my age range of peers. I feel like it’s something that people my age just don’t necessarily pay attention to or take time out of their day to read about.
I got into journalism because I wanted to share those stories and also just learn more about them myself. Being able to share those stories, write those stories and publish those stories, I feel like I’m able to reach a pretty wide range of people. And I feel like that’s just so important for me to be able to do.
Miller: Do you have a sense for why your peers aren’t paying attention to the news the way that you are?
Tandrow: I really credit a lot of my attention to it to my mom. But I feel like it also just can be inaccessible sometimes for people. Personally, our Falcon Flyer doesn’t print very often. It’s only a once-a-year thing. So you have to search for news going around at the school. And I feel like a lot of publishers are making that transition to online newspapers, and it just makes it so much harder or it takes a lot more time out of people my age’s day to search for those stories and stuff.
Miller: What difference do you think it would make if the Falcon Flyer were in print?
Tandrow: I feel like it would make a pretty big difference because we could post it around the school. I feel like when people are walking to class or just don’t have anything to do during the school day, it’s a good thing to just read about. It can be interesting and it can be informational, and you just learn more about your peers and what’s going on around the school and in the community.
Miller: Kennedy, who do you see as your audience? Maybe, who do you want your audience to be?
Tandrow: Currently, I feel like our audience is a lot of students’ parents that read the Falcon Flyer.
Miller: Is it that you’re writing with them in mind, or the parents are the ones who are used to taking in the news and they wanna find out what’s happening in school, and now they have access to the student publication and more than their kids care?
Tandrow: I believe that the parents grew up around the news more than we ever did, so they just have that kind of instinct to want to search for it. We don’t necessarily try to appeal to just one audience. We really try to get as wide of a range as we can. So I feel like this year I’m gonna really work on that with my writers and just the paper in general, to make it more appealing to the younger generations as well.
Miller: Rye, how do you think about audience?
Geilenfeldt: My goal with Your Battle Ground Public Schools, especially with the fact that it is a districtwide publication, is I want it to be something that anybody from up in Amboy down to northern Vancouver can pick up and read, and find a story that they enjoy. With Issue 3 especially, the most recent one, we did our very best to have a wide array of different topics, from academic to artistic to athletic successes among students. So, I would like for it to be something that students can read and enjoy seeing their own and their peer successes.
Parents can enjoy seeing what’s happening in their district. They are the voters and the taxpayers of our district, so really seeing what their children and their peers are doing. And then community members to see what’s happening in their schools, because for business owners and people like that, the students in Battle Ground Public Schools today who are working hard in their CTE programs, and their journalism programs, their art programs, those are the workers of tomorrow. So it just gives them an idea of some of the great things we have going on here in Battle Ground.
Miller: Kennedy, where do you get your ideas for stories right now?
Tandrow: Right now, since I was recently promoted to editor, I’m coming up with them on my own. So what I’m really taking into consideration, especially at the beginning of the school year, is interviewing new staff members, going over some new rules in the school, and also introducing all our sports and stuff, and all our clubs and all of the extracurricular activities that Prairie does offer.
Miller: Do you ever get pitched by classmates? Do classmates say, “hey, you should profile me” or you should write an article about this thing that’s happening?
Tandrow: Oh yeah, for sure. I definitely encourage my staff members to write about just about anything they want. If it’s school related, I highly encourage it. And I hope that they feel open enough to me to offer up those ideas, because I feel like it gives another perspective about more students in the school and what they see, what they do and what they want to read about.
Miller: Rye, what’s a story from the most recent issue that you’re particularly proud of?
Geilenfeldt: I think that would be the Tukes Valley students raising $22,000 to restore an outdoor classroom. Given that I go to Tukes, I was able to watch this in real-time. Students in grades Kindergarten through eighth grade participated in a fundraiser called “The Fund Run” where they ran laps, and for every lap they ran, a certain amount was calculated and donated by a community partner. With over $22,000 raised, that money was put towards the rebuilding and restoration of an old outdoor classroom that was initially established around a decade ago, I believe. Since publishing that story, I’ve been able to see that outdoor classroom come to life just off campus. Yeah, I’m very proud of that story.
Miller: What are you excited to cover this year?
Geilenfeldt: I have actually started working on a story already that is following the Battle Ground High School band program from first rehearsals to their big Friday Night Lights performance in October. So that is something I have absolutely loved doing. You ask anybody who’s been in my editorial circle, Rye loves band stories. [Laughter] I love taking pictures of bands. I love talking to band students. This year, I was given the opportunity to work with the Battle Ground High School Band Program to tell their story, which I am very excited about. I am so eager to get that written and published.
Miller: Do you find that as a journalist now, and as an eighth grader, that you have this license to talk to high schoolers that you wouldn’t have otherwise?
Geilenfeldt: I’m a very sociable person, so I go out of my way to make connections. I always have. I’ve always gone out of my way to make connections with people who you might not think that I, as somebody my age, would make connections with. Especially as I have gotten into the field of journalism, I will kind of just, as I’m making connections with new people, ask them a bit about themselves, about their environment and their school life. I’m just always on the look for more insight into my community because I do run a publication that covers 19 unique schools with 13,000 unique students with unique lives, personalities and interests. So I just really like to gauge these ideas.
I do have a lot of personal friends in high school already. So that has been really helpful for me to sort of bridge those gaps to find stories, because my editorial team is very small. It is just myself, my advisor and then my associate editor, Paisley Dunn, who is a student at Battle Ground High School. But her position as a student at Battle Ground High School allows me to learn new things happening at that nine through 12 level that I would not really hear about otherwise, as somebody still at the five through eight level in middle school for one more year.
Miller: Kennedy, what do you think you’re learning by doing this?
Tandrow: In the journalism program at Prairie, I’m obviously learning some great writing skills, but also I feel like I’m learning how to make connections and communicate with people of all types, characteristics and all of that. I feel like that’s such an important skill to learn because, personally, I’ve always been a pretty shy person. I feel like ever since I started doing journalism, I really learned how to carry a conversation, just be able to talk about really anything and be able to get a story about anything.
Miller: Kennedy, are you potentially interested in a career in journalism?
Tandrow: I believe so, yeah. I’ve definitely thought about being a rock journalist, for sure.
Miller: Writing about rock?
Tandrow: I love music so much, and I feel like if I can combine two of my niches, that would just be like the perfect thing for me to do. I feel like journalism, it opens just so many doors for really any type of writing you want to do.
Miller: Rye, what about you? Again, you’re only in eighth grade, but as I’m talking to you, it seems like I’m talking to somebody who’s 20 years older. Have you thought about potential careers?
Geilenfeldt: You know, my whole life I always wanted to go into public education, specifically secondary public education. But since I started this project in my sixth-grade year, I’ve fallen more and more in love with the idea of journalism. And I’ve had multiple discussions with Paisley, my associate editor, where I have said that it is my dream to work at a community newspaper. I really admire the editorial skill and the photojournalistic ability of our local newspaper, The Reflector.
So, I could see a career in journalism. I just love the idea of a small town newspaper that still finds a way to tell those big stories that really just make an impact on the community.
Miller: Rye and Kennedy, it was a pleasure talking with both of you. Thanks very much.
Tandrow: Thank you so much. Have a great day.
Geilenfeldt: Thank you.
Miller: You too. Rye Geilenfeldt is an eighth grader at Tukes Valley Middle School, founder and managing editor of Your Battle Ground Public Schools, Your BGPS. Kennedy Tandrow is a junior at Prairie High School, the editor of the school newspaper there, the Falcon Flyer.
“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.
