Bronx River News students joined other high schools throughout the city to attend the first-ever retreat for high school newspapers throughout New York City.
Student journalists had a chance to attend the Journalism Staff Retreat at the United Federation of Teachers headquarters in Manhattan on May 18. Journalists and advisors from 19 schools across the boroughs traded ideas and brainstormed ways to improve their papers.
Organized with assistance from Press Pass NYC, student journalists and advisors from around the city came together through the use of conversation starters. Three sessions focused on Team Building, Article Ideas and Engagement.
Before the sessions started, students received nametags with three different session names. At the start of each session, students broke into different groups based on the group name on the name tag. Conversations were sparked and opportunities to discuss different perspectives opened up. Students shared different strategies for improving school newspapers and getting more engagement. Advisors discussed the same concepts in their own groups.
The retreat also honored dedicated journalism educators, including Bronx River’s very own Deborah Porterfield, who recently received the 2026 Robert Greenman Award for Excellence in High School Journalism Teaching and Advising. Bronx River students Teagan Connolly and Zoe Reyes delivered a tear-filled speech dedicated to her upcoming retirement and accomplishments. Journalism advisors Brian Sweeney from Townsend Harris High School and David Rohlfing from Pace High School also spoke about her accomplishments in launching an award-winning newspaper and helping give New York City journalism programs a national presence.
Xavier Lyons, a senior, said that the retreat helped him meet new people and allowed him to create bonds with others. He added that through the exercises, he was able to share some unique things our own news staff does. “I told them about how we do news quizzes and they said it was a good idea,” he said.
Franklin Sosa, junior on staff, agrees that the retreat was helpful for our newspaper because it helped develop new styles. “I realized that our news style is not the only style and we can take influence from other different types of styles to improve ourselves,” he said.
Justin Zhu, a sophomore, found the sessions helpful for learning how to get newspaper engagement. “They said some stuff about games and puzzles,” he said. The different sessions helped to make the ideas more diverse and unique, he added, “They made us switch tables and gave you tags with sessions to make sure you talked to people each transition.”
