Student Newspaper Ideas: Stories Your Readers Will Actually Read

It's Sunday night and Maya, the editor of her high school paper, is looking at the pitch list for Monday's meeting. Homecoming recap. Teacher of the month. A review of the new cafeteria pizza. The same three stories ran last October, and the October before that. (Maya is a composite, an illustration rather than a real editor.)

Nobody on staff is lazy. They just don't know where stories come from, so they write about what's already on the school calendar.

You probably know the feeling. Good student newspaper ideas don't come from a list of topics; they come from knowing who to ask and what to look at. Below are 40 ideas sorted by beat, each with the first person to interview or the record to request, a quick test for any pitch, a table that rescues the tired staples, and a story budget template for your next meeting.

And when you land the interview, ParrotNotes can record it (with your source's permission) and give you a transcript, so you can listen to the person instead of scribbling.

What makes a good student newspaper idea?

A topic is a word like "parking" or "the cafeteria". A story is a topic with a question, a reason it matters now, and people who can answer it on the record. Most weak pitches are topics.

Before you pitch any of your student newspaper ideas, run each one through three questions:

1. Who in the building does this affect? If the honest answer is "the five people in the club", it's a brief, not a feature.
2. What changed, or what's about to? New rules, new money, new people, a deadline. No change usually means no news.
3. Who can I quote by Friday? Name at least two people, ideally one with power and one without.

If an idea passes all three, it's a story. If it fails one, fix that part before you bring it to the meeting.

40 student newspaper ideas by beat

Each idea below comes with a starting point: a person to interview or a document to ask for. Swap in your own school's names. For the interview itself, our guide on how to conduct an interview walks through the questions, the ground rules, and the follow-ups.

School board and news

The school board (or the college's board of trustees) decides most of what students complain about. Their agendas are public, and they're posted before the meeting, so you can report ahead of the vote.

1. What's on the next board agenda that students haven't heard about. Start with: the posted agenda and the board secretary.
2. A policy change, explained by the people it hits. Phone rules, dress codes, attendance. Start with: the policy text, then three students and one teacher.
3. Why a class or program is being cut or added. Start with: the department head and the course catalog from three years ago.
4. The schedule change nobody asked for. Start with: the principal or registrar, and the survey (if there was one).
5. Student representatives: what they've actually voted on. Start with: the student rep on the board and the meeting minutes.

Money and buildings

Money stories feel boring until readers see the number. Public schools and public colleges have budgets you can read, and a records request is often the fastest way to get the detail.

6. Where the activity fee goes. Start with: the student activities office and the budget line.
7. The renovation that's late or over budget. Start with: facilities staff and the board minutes that approved it.
8. What a sports team, play or robotics club costs to run. Start with: the coach or adviser and the booster club treasurer.
9. The broken thing everyone works around. Heating, Wi-Fi, a lab that leaks. Start with: a work-order request and the custodial staff.
10. What textbooks and course materials cost students this term. Start with: five students' receipts and the bookstore manager.

Student life

These are the stories readers send to their friends. They work best when you talk to students who aren't already on the paper.

11. The commute. How long students travel, and what it costs them. Start with: the transportation office and a short reader survey.
12. Jobs after school. Who works, how many hours, and what it does to homework. Start with: five working students and a counselor.
13. The unofficial rules of the cafeteria, library or parking lot. Start with: an afternoon of watching and asking.
14. What students do with their phones now that the rules changed. Start with: the policy and a week of interviews.
15. The club that grew or died this year, and why. Start with: the club's adviser and its first and last members.

Sports beyond the scoreboard

Scores are already on social media by the time you publish. The stories are off the field.

16. Who pays for the gear. Start with: parents, the athletic director and the booster budget.
17. The athletic trainer's day. Start with: the trainer, with permission to shadow a practice.
18. The team that loses every game and keeps showing up. Start with: the captain and the coach.
19. What happens to athletes after an injury. Start with: a recovered athlete and the school's return-to-play steps (no medical details without consent).
20. Girls' and boys' facilities, side by side. Start with: practice schedules and field time, and the athletic director.

People and profiles

A good profile answers "why should I care about this person?" in the first paragraph. Our feature writing examples show how professionals structure one.

21. The staff member everyone knows by sight and nobody knows by name. Custodian, crossing guard, front-office secretary. Start with: one long, recorded conversation.
22. The teacher who had a different career first. Start with: the staff directory and a question in the teachers' lounge.
23. A student with a job or business off campus. Start with: the student, then a customer or boss.
24. The alum who came back to teach. Start with: the yearbook from their senior year.
25. The newest student in the building. Transfer, exchange or newly arrived family. Start with: the counseling office, and only with the student's agreement.

Data stories

Numbers give a story a spine. Collect them yourself if nobody publishes them, and say how you got them.

26. Attendance or tardy rates by period. Start with: the attendance office or a records request.
27. How long the lunch line really takes. Start with: a stopwatch, five days, and the cafeteria manager.
28. Campus crime numbers (colleges). Start with: the annual security report (see below).
29. What share of students take AP, IB or dual-enrollment classes. Start with: the counseling office and the state's school report card.
30. How many seats are left in popular classes. Start with: the registrar's enrollment counts.

Opinion and service

Service pieces are the ones readers save. Opinion pieces work when they're argued from facts you've reported.

31. A first-week survival guide written by seniors. Start with: ten seniors, one question each.
32. How to appeal a grade, a parking ticket or a schedule change. Start with: the written procedure and someone who did it.
33. The editorial board's view on a policy you've reported. Start with: your own news story.
34. Free things students don't know they have. Tutoring, software licenses, counseling. Start with: each office's front desk.
35. A myth-check of a rumor going around. Start with: the rumor, then the person who'd know.

Community and history

Your school sits inside a town. Some of the best student newspaper article ideas start at the edge of campus.

36. What the paper covered 25 years ago this month. Start with: your own archive or the library's bound volumes.
37. The business across the street that depends on students. Start with: the owner, at a slow hour.
38. Why the building or the mascot has its name. Start with: the school's archive or the local historical society.
39. A local election that will change something at school. Start with: the candidates and the county election office.
40. Where last year's graduates went. Start with: the counseling office's numbers and five alumni.

Upgrade tired student newspaper article ideas

The staples aren't banned. They just need a question. Here's how to turn six of them into stories.

Devon covered sports for his college paper and had pitched "season preview" three years running. His editor sent it back with one note: who pays for this? Devon spent a week with the club hockey team's treasurer and found that players covered their own ice time.

The story ran on the front page, and the student government took up the team's funding request the next month. (Devon is also a composite.)

Where to find more student newspaper ideas

Once the list above runs dry, these sources keep refilling your pile of student newspaper ideas:

• Public records. Public schools and public colleges keep budgets, contracts, emails and meeting minutes that the public can ask for. The Student Press Law Center has a Public Records Letter Generator and a guide to high school public records, and it warns that FERPA, the student privacy law, "is often misused to block student journalists' access to information."
• The Clery report. Colleges that take federal student aid must publish an annual security report by October 1, covering the most recent three years of campus crime statistics (Northwestern University Police explains the rule). Compare this year's numbers with last year's.
• Your own archive. Every recurring problem has a history. Last decade's story is often this year's follow-up.
• A tip form. Put a short form link in every issue and on your site. Read every entry, even the silly ones.
• Walking the building. Spend a free period somewhere you never go: the boiler room, the counseling office waiting area, the bus loop.

Priya, a new reporter on a college paper, pulled her campus's security report for a practice assignment and noticed one category had jumped from one year to the next. She asked campus police why. The answer was a change in how incidents were counted, which became her first published story. (Priya is a composite; the method is real.)

Report it: interviews, recording and your rights

A good idea still needs good reporting. Three things trip up student reporters most.

Recording interviews. Record whenever you can, so your quotes are exact. Recording laws vary by state: some let one person in the conversation record, and others need everyone's consent. Our guide to one-party consent states covers the details. Whatever your state, ask on the recording ("Is it OK if I record this?") and check your school's own policy before recording other students. ParrotNotes records on your phone, keeps going with the screen locked, and turns the recording into a searchable transcript, which makes it fast to check a quote against the recording.

Interviewing adults. Principals and deans are used to being interviewed. Email first, say what the story is about, and ask for 15 minutes. If they decline, write that they declined.

Knowing your rights. In 1988 the Supreme Court decided Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, which gave public high school officials wide room to censor school-sponsored student papers. Since then, 18 states have passed New Voices laws that protect student journalists at the state level; Minnesota became the 18th on May 17, 2024 (Student Press Law Center). If you're not sure which rules apply to you, ask your adviser or the SPLC's legal hotline.

When the reporting's done, our guide on how to write a news story shows how to turn your notes into a finished piece.

Turn student newspaper ideas into a story budget

A story budget is the list of every story in the next issue, with its owner and deadline. Professional newsrooms use one, and it keeps a student staff honest about what's actually being reported. Copy this one into a shared doc:

STORY BUDGET: Issue [number], publishing [date]

Slug       | Reporter | Beat     | The question            | Sources (2+)          | Art          | Words | Draft due
-----------|----------|----------|-------------------------|-----------------------|--------------|-------|----------
fee-split  | [name]   | Money    | Where does the $X go?   | Treasurer, 3 students | Chart        | 600   | [date]
trainer    | [name]   | Sports   | What's her day like?    | Trainer, 2 athletes   | Photo        | 800   | [date]
[slug]     |          |          |                         |                       |              |       |

Briefs (under 150 words): [list]
Holding for next issue: [list]
Killed, and why: [list]

Run every pitch through the three-question test before it goes on the budget. Anything without a question or two named sources goes to "holding" until it has them. When headlines are ready, a title case converter keeps them consistent across the issue.

Start with one better question

Maya's Monday meeting doesn't need 40 student newspaper ideas. It needs three good ones with a question, a reason they matter now, and two people who'll talk.

Pick one beat from the list above, run its ideas through the three-question test, and put the survivors on your story budget. Then go get the interviews. When you do, record them with ParrotNotes so every quote you print is the one your source actually said. Build up enough clips and they'll become your journalism portfolio.