School Opens and Presses Roll

Presses roll this Saturday after a summer of writing workshops, field trips, newcomer’s day and other activities. The days before printing the Sept. issue creates excitement in the office with last-minute headline changes, teasing among the staff as to which cover is most compelling and the detailed inputting of information in the database.

We sent postcards to more than 1,300 teachers who subscribed to the paper last school year. Only 20 percent responded so we had no choice but to call the other 80 percent to find out if they want the paper, have transferred to another school, were laid off or worse, passed away over the summer!

Here’s the sad part of my tale – we lost our printing support from the L.A. Times. For 20 years they donated printing and in recent years donated delivery. The Times is in bankruptcy (translation: The Times will give us $15,000 credit for the year but we still have to pay them $45,000!). The hardest decision I had to make was to cut the press run from 120,000 copies to 60,000 copies and drop the libraries. We can only provide newspapers to schools and a few dozen public agencies.

Teens and teachers want hard copies even though every article is available on our website, www.layouth.com. After reading this please send a donation via PayPal or “snail mail” so we can restore copies to the libraries and community centers.