I would like to see a News section where we could highlight student accomplishments. For example, today’s Daily Bulletin has news about our students exhibiting at the Mass College of Art. There are also stories in newspapers and magazines that we could reference. Carole Carter gave me this idea months ago when she showed me a Boston Globe story about one of our students who was in a Latin competition.

This would be a good way to make ourselves better known in the community. Many people do not know how accomplished our students are, and some people have never even heard of Boston Latin Academy.

Of course, we would need people to volunteer to report the information and a person to post it.

I would like to know what others think about this. Please respond to this thread and let’s get a conversation going. Thanks.

Connie,
I, too, think this is a great idea. BLA has outstanding students and faculty. The greater Boston community doesn’t know it, or, not well enough. If people are willing to help get the information to me, it can be highlighted on this site.
Anyone willing to help?
Carole

Boston Nature Center in Mattapan has BLA sophomore Nathaniel Smith featured in their current newsletter [Fall 2007] in the section on the BNC Teen Ambassador program.  It can be seen on their web site at:

http://www.massaudubon.org/PDF/sanctuaries/BNC/alive/BNC_fall07.pdf

How about a place where we can email in programming and opportunities that applies to students in grades 7-12 that has nothing to do with BLA, but may help the students to broaden their horizons?  This particular opportunity may interest a budding artist....
EXAMPLE:

Request for Artwork Designs for (Arlington Children’s Theatre) ACT’s Summer Productions:  West Side Story and Seussical!

We are now collecting artwork designs for t-shirts and other uses like our website, posters, postcards, etc for our upcoming summer musical, West Side Story, and our summer day program production, Seussical.  If you’re interested in designing something for us, please use the following guidelines:

- Black ink on white paper, 8.5” X 11”, with at least ½” margins
- Bold lines, not too much shading and not too complicated
- Incorporate characters and/or themes from the show.  You can include the title of the show, or we can incorporate it later into the final design.
- Sign and date your design (for example, Steve Smith 2008)
- Keep a copy for yourself (although we will return your original to you)
- No food crumbs or coffee stains, wrinkles, splotches, etc.
- After you’ve finished your black & white version, if you’d like, you can copy it a nd col or it for possible use on the web page. The black and white version is required for T-shirt, flier or program use. The color version is optional.
- Electronic submission is OK as a jpg or gif. If you are scanning your art, please set your resolution to at least 300 dpi. Scanned files can be emailed to
- If you need to submit a paper copy of your artwork instead, give it to Steve or Jackie any upcoming WSS rehearsal, or send an email to and we’ll figure out the best way to get it from you.

Deadline for artwork is Monday June 23rd for Seussical and Monday June 30th for West Side Story. E-mail Gretchen at with any questions.

I would strongly suggest that the Parents’ Forum work out some kind of arrangement with Dragon Tales - the BLS school newspaper - so that a PDF version of the paper is posted or linked to from the Parents site - or better yet have the paper emailed to parents that want it!  I asked my 7th grade son why he doesn’t bring copies home (I’ve seen one issue all year, which i picked up myself at BLA) and he says he doesn’t get it or read it because it costs money (only 25 cents I was later told, but apparently enough to deter readers) Surely circulation is the first priority, and if they have to sell subscrips. to parents at parents night or other events, or the Parents forum can make one big donation to get it posted on the website that would do a LOT for making news available to parents.  I learned more about the Semi-formal catastrophe from reading my one Dragon Tales than I did from the info posted to these forum discussions.... I had a conversation with Asst. principal Emilia Pastor (who’s putting together BLA email lists for the 7th & 8th grade) and she thought it was a great idea to try and get Dragon Tales out to parents somehow.  She said she would raise the idea with Mr. Freed, one of the faculty advisors, and urged me to do so too: so now I am also urging you to do so = .

Dear steveclink,

As Chris mentioned, we are working on getting the Dragon Tales online this year. This past school year was the first year I served as faculty advisor, and we had to resurrect the newspaper from a year-long hiatus. Our priority for the first year was just getting the print version produced.

The students working on the paper decided to sell copies at 25 cents each. This distribution model brought in some money, but did not allow our reporting to reach all the students, staff members, and parents. So, we then tried to sell advertising, which funds the majority of most professional publications. The problem was that our writers were not much interested in becoming salespeople, and sold not even one ad.

We have three goals for this year: 1. put the Dragon Tales online, 2. sell advertising, so that we can 3. have the paper printed on actual newsprint (as opposed to in-house photocopies this year) and distribute it for free to all students, faculty, staff, and parents. We are looking for printing estimates, but what we really need is advertising support. I’m sure there are BLA parents who have businesses that would benefit from the publicity. Plus, donations to the school newspaper are tax-deductible. If you are interested, please contact me! Selling subscriptions to parents is another great idea.

In the meanwhile, I do have a few copies of the last issue around. If you send me your address, I will be glad to put one in the mail for you.

And thank you for your kind words about the semi-formal article.

-Richard Freed

steveclink - 22 June 2008 12:04 PM

I would strongly suggest that the Parents’ Forum work out some kind of arrangement with Dragon Tales - the BLS school newspaper - so that a PDF version of the paper is posted or linked to from the Parents site - or better yet have the paper emailed to parents that want it!  I asked my 7th grade son why he doesn’t bring copies home (I’ve seen one issue all year, which i picked up myself at BLA) and he says he doesn’t get it or read it because it costs money (only 25 cents I was later told, but apparently enough to deter readers) Surely circulation is the first priority, and if they have to sell subscrips. to parents at parents night or other events, or the Parents forum can make one big donation to get it posted on the website that would do a LOT for making news available to parents.  I learned more about the Semi-formal catastrophe from reading my one Dragon Tales than I did from the info posted to these forum discussions.... I had a conversation with Asst. principal Emilia Pastor (who’s putting together BLA email lists for the 7th & 8th grade) and she thought it was a great idea to try and get Dragon Tales out to parents somehow.  She said she would raise the idea with Mr. Freed, one of the faculty advisors, and urged me to do so too: so now I am also urging you to do so = .