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Three years ago, seventh-grade students Nate Lawton and Caspar von Hollen created The FHCDS School Magazine. A digital magazine distributed to our students, faculty, and staff. What started as a magazine made up of a two-person team has now evolved into a highly anticipated publication with a new name (The Next Question News), an advisor, and a twelve-person team.
The Next Question News is an example of how Far Hills empowers students to uncover their passions and provides them the freedom to do so. We encourage our students to explore different manifestations of creativity to move their talents to new heights. Our Falcons have no boundaries when given the opportunity to excel and soar in all they set their mind to.
Nate and Caspar have continued to advance in their writing, interview, and social skills and have taken on new challenges as student leaders among their peers. They are burgeoning young professionals who demonstrate their Falcon pride in all they do.
The Next Question News March Issue was Nate and Caspar's "milestone issue." You can read Edition X - March 2021 here. Inside you will find:
- an interview with Head of School Georgia Zaiser
- an interview with Chef Jenn Monaco
- an interview with Student Government President Caroline Calello
And so much more! See below for a note from the editors discussing the path to their tenth issue!
This is the tenth edition of The Next Question that Caspar and I have written together. Because we have hit a milestone of such importance, we will share with you the history of our magazine. It started in 4th grade when Caspar asked me the question "Want to write a magazine or a book?" and my decision changed us forever.
Our first magazine was titled The FHCDS School Magazine. In the first 2 editions, we made many typos and wrote in an unprofessional manner. In Edition 2 we even spelled the word Magazine wrong! Eventually, we started becoming more and more professional and Edition 3 is a good example of this. Edition 4 was named The Next Question, based on a quote that Ms. Frustaci gave us in an interview shortly before she retired. The then-named Next Question magazine was starting to become known around the school. At this point, we were in 5th grade and Mrs. Sopko would help us publish it. One day Mrs. Keremedjiev said to Mrs. Sopko that we should have a teacher advisor. We were lucky enough to get Mrs. K., our homeroom teacher at the time, as an advisor to the magazine. She helped us get memorable interviews with many different teachers and students throughout all the following issues.
We continued through the next few issues, writing more about adventure trips and student events while including a book review and trivia game in every issue. As our magazine gained popularity, we decided to bring on other students to report and write the articles in Editions 7-10.
Then COVID-19 hit and all the students had to do virtual learning for the rest of the 2019-20 school year. This put a halt on the magazine for some time as we were adjusting to virtual learning. We decided to come out with a Virtual Learning Edition but sadly, we could only have 1 or 2 students write articles because it was very difficult to write and publish a magazine virtually, let alone publish with a 12-person team! That issue was a very important issue because it showed that our magazine can adapt and still come out in challenging times. Also, we introduced a Google Forms survey which gave us valuable insights into what the community was thinking. Apart from being very helpful both the survey and publishing virtually were milestones.
Now we are on our 10th issue, which is a huge achievement for our team! Again, it is hard to adapt to being in school yet being unable to have in-person magazine meetings, but we have finally come out with this issue and we are all very proud of it. Thank you, readers, for supporting our magazines. This means so much to us. We hope you enjoy reading the rest of The Next Question Edition X.
Linked below are all our past editions of the Next Question Magazine. If you have some spare time, please take a look at them and see how much this magazine has grown.
Congratulations, Nate and Caspar, on ten successful issues of The Next Question. We have loved watching your magazine and team grow over the years and can't wait for the next issue.