Written by teachers Shannon Miller (ASL 2004-present) and Colin Bridgewater (ASL 2000-present)

During an awards ceremony at the National High School Journalism Convention in Chicago on Saturday, 3 November, The Standard was inducted into the National Scholastic Press Association's Hall of Fame. Every June, the staff submits the newspapers published during the school year for critique by an NSPA judge. The Hall of Fame induction, the highest honor given by the organization, is in recognition of 10 All-American ratings in a span of 11 years from the NSPA's critique service. The first staff to achieve this honor was from the 2006-07 school year, and The Standard became eligible after the 2016-17 staff earned the paper’s tenth All-American honor.

In addition, the recently published September/October issue of The Standard received ninth place in the 17+pages tabloid category in the Best of Show competition, held among the publications submitted by the more than 6,200 student journalists in attendance at the convention. The October issue of The Scroll received first place Best of Show in the middle school/junior high category.

Each year, the NSPA presents scholastic journalism’s pre-eminent award, the Pacemaker, to publications from the previous academic year that have been judged by teams of professionals to have achieved general excellence and outstanding achievement in the following categories: coverage and content; quality of writing and reporting; leadership; design; photography; and graphics. Both The Standard and The Scroll were named among the 63 newspaper finalists for the award, with The Scroll going on to win a Pacemaker for 2017-18.

Zainab ’22 received an Honorable Mention in the Editorial Cartoon of the Year contest for her cartoon that appeared alongside an opinion about homework in the November 2017 issue of The Scroll.

Camilla ’22 received third place in the Middle School Story of the Year contest for her article from the February 2018 issue entitled, "E-cigarettes cause administration to take action."

The National High School Journalism Convention is jointly sponsored each year by the National Scholastic Press Association and the Journalism Education Association. Participants are able to choose from hundreds of journalism-specific workshops over the course of two days, as well as meet with professionals and journalism advisers and students from all over the United States. This year’s conference was attended by more than 6,200 students and their advisers, the second largest in the convention’s history. The convention opened with a keynote address by Pete Souza, President Obama’s chief photographer. While in Chicago, ASL student participants enjoyed an architecture boat tour on the Chicago River and attended a Bulls NBA game, where they were joined by ASL alumni now living near Chicago—Robbie ’23, Claire ’23 and Finn ’22.