The Great Struggle of the LGB Express

By Sophia Lashmar, Year 11

The LGB Express is now beginning its eleventh year of publishing articles for the students, written by the students of La Grande Boissière. Every week, new articles focusing on school life, student-related issues, interviews with teachers, tips for different classes, and recommendations for getting through the school year are published. These sorts of articles are exactly what you would expect the students to love and eagerly await. However, the biggest issue that the Express faces today is one faced by major newspapers around the world, one that is a struggle for all papers, whether they are run by high school students or Pulitzer Prize-winners. The real struggle faced by the Express is readership. 

The Express team is striving to increase readership levels this year, through writing relevant, insightful and even controversial articles to get students interested in reading it. If you have something to say, what better way than to write an opinion piece with the Express? 

Delving deeper into the issue, it seems that there are a few root causes that have led to the Express’s lack of regular readers. 

First, when asked, many students had a vague awareness that some sort of a school paper existed, but were blissfully ignorant of the many emails, posters, writer-callouts and announcements put out by the Express team. Therefore, the first step would logically be to raise awareness that the LGB Express exists and is waiting to be read by LGB Students. 

However, the next issue lies with the fact that the students who were aware of the Express did not know how to access it. As the Express, along with the school, is trying to reduce its footprint, printed copies of the paper are not a viable option. Even though the website link to the Express is on the Instagram page and it is sent out weekly on the official school newsletter, it is clearly not enough. What the Express needs is visibility. Many students were eager to read it, but did not know how. 

This leads to the next question: How can the LGB Express be advertised and made visible to students? After carefully considering various students’ suggestions, putting up posters in places where students will see them, with QR codes and the website link attached would be a good place to start. 

Lastly, not only is the paper looking to increase readership, but it is looking for writers. If you love to write, if you enjoy English class, are looking for a CAS opportunity, if you have an opinion or if you simply want to be heard, why not write for the Express? 

With this call to action, the Opinions section looks forward to its eleventh year with hope for more readers, and lots of opinionated and eloquent writers!