School Matters

The School Matters Column is currently being written by Preeva Tramiel. The column runs several times per week and covers news and goings-on at elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools in the Daily News circulation area. To do this effectively, we need your help! Parents, kids, and educators, if you have any news about school wide events, assemblies, field trips, classroom projects, innovative assignments, educational accolades, or anything else scholastic, please tell us about it. Pupils who send in news items that we use will have their names printed in the column. Articles that are particularly well written may be printed in their entirety, depending on space considerations. Photos are welcome, too.

Please understand, however, that it is not necessary to write an article. Even the briefest news tip would be much appreciated. We look forward to hearing from you.

How to Get an Article in School Matters

Submission process:

  1. Send the basic information about your event, activity, etc. to schoolmatters@paloaltopta.org.
  2. Be sure to include Who, What, When, Where and Why.
  3. Either include the information in the text of your email or attach as a WORD document.
  4. Include a name, email address and phone number so we can follow up
  5. This is a daily column.In general, I need the information by noon for next day publication, so I have time to edit, write and follow up.
  6. If this story has time value and you can’t get all the input until the last minute, let us know something is coming and we will figure out the timing
  7. The more lead time you can give us on a time-valued story, the better.
  8. Don’t worry about the length. We can always combine several short pieces and we’ll cut the long ones to fit. Just make sure you include everything you HOPE will get printed.
  9. Pictures may be emailed as attachments – most will not be printed.

Permissions

  1. Please get permission from parents of elementary school children to use their names and pictures. If we have to do this, it’s likely to hold up your story.
  2. High school and middle school students have already signed a waiver.

Style Guidelines

In general, don’t worry about writing style or wordsmithing. Just make sure the information is accurate. If you want to write the story ( and increase your chances of getting everything you want in it), keep it conversational, avoid jargon and acronyms, and use lots of kids' names and comments.

Content Guidelines

  1. Anything school related
  2. No school sports - sports are covered elsewhere
  3. If in doubt about a story idea, submit it. It doesn’t hurt to try
  4. The Daily News really likes individual names of kids, parents, teachers….so personalize your story as much as possible. If you don’t know how to incorporate all the comments, just gather the quotes and tack them on the end of your document
  5. If an event is open to the public and your trying to get advance publicity, give us at least 2 weeks lead time. (Earlier risks getting lost).
  6. Most articles are about past events which can be covered up to a month after occurrence.
  7. If something wonderful happens at your school, or in your child’s classroom, let us know.