The Statewide Newspaper in Education Program
of the New Jersey Newspaper Foundation
| NIE Committee Meeting Agendas and Minutes |
The Statewide Newspaper in Education Program of the New Jersey Newspaper Foundation |
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2002 Committee Meetings
Meetings of the Statewide NIE Committee are held at the New Jersey Press Association's headquarters: 840 Bear Tavern Road, Suite 305, West Trenton, N.J. Our phone number is (609) 406-0600 (dial ext. 0 for the receptionist). Our offices are located in the Mountain View Office Park, which is adjacent to Exit 2 of Interstate 95 in central New Jersey ... about one mile north of the Delaware River bridge linking New Jersey and Pennsylvania. (NOT exit 2 of the New Jersey Turnpike) When leaving I-95 at Exit 2, turn left at the top of the exit ramp. Then turn right at the first traffic signal to enter the Mountain View Office Park. Our offices are on the third floor of Building 840, which is clearly marked on the top of the building. For a map to NJPA's headquarters, click here.
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Minutes of the December 12, 2002, Meeting The meeting started at 11:10 a.m. at the New Jersey Press Association’s headquarters in West Trenton. ATTENDING: Cynthia Forster (Chair), Shirley Sasor (Vice-Chair), Tom Engleman (NJPA), Antonette Bomentre-Walter, John D'Achino, Steve Gondelman, Wendy Halle, Milli Kerner, Liza Mattison, Jackie Mickelburgh, Allison Spinella, Lee Williams MINUTES: Milli made a motion to accept the minutes of the October 17th meeting. The motion was seconded and approved. FIRST UNION ESSAY CONTEST • Tom recapped the grant highlights and “Living Without Hate” essay contest. Twelve newspapers participated. The winning essays from each newspaper were judged by members of the Illinois NIE Committee and the winners were announced at the NJEA Convention. The winning essays are available online at the NJPA NIE website. Tom has edited these essays. Savings bonds have been ordered for each winning student, and these students will be invited to attend the NJPA Dinner of Champions in July. Many newspapers are publishing the essays of their local winners. • Bills related to the contest have been paid, and checks were distributed to the participating papers who submitted entries. Each paper received $717. Lee Williams reported that The Herald did participate in the contest, but received 0 entries. She questioned whether or not she was eligible to receive compensation for participating. Cynthia suggested that in the future, the rules make clear that in order to qualify for compensation, a newspaper must submit entries. • Jackie Wilson arranged to have one complimentary ticket for each winning student donated by Great Adventure. • Milli made a motion to repeat this contest again in 2003, with a different theme. The motion was seconded and approved. • Tom questioned whether or not next year's topic should tie more into the committee's mission of using newspapers as a resource. Jackie M. suggested a possible theme: local, everyday heroes. There are numerous curriculum materials available on this. NJEA CONVENTION • The consensus was that this year's NIE booth had a good location and the hand-outs from the newspapers were sufficient. One suggestion was made: next year, BRING rubberbands for the poster! • The committee thanked Shirley for arranging the photo for the poster and appearance by Alicia Luciano, Miss New Jersey. Alicia was very popular. While teachers waited in line for her autograph, NIE Committee members were able to share about the NIE program. • If your newspaper changes it logo, be sure Tom has the updated one. • Antonette motioned to have next year's Miss New Jersey on the NIE poster. The motion was seconded and passed. • Additional convention possibilities were discussed, including Schools Boards, State PTA, NJ Reading Association, and NJ Association for the Gifted. Cynthia asked members to send recommendations. Jackie and Milli are interested in doing a workshop at the Gifted Convention in Princeton on February 28 and March 1. Liza brought up the importance of attendees reporting back to the NIE Committee. INPRINT MAGAZINE ARTICLES ON NIE TOPICS & PROGRAMS Cynthia's article was printed in the December issue. Steve's article will appear in January. Be sure to have your article in to Missy Flynn by the 15th of the month. Send articles to and add a brief bio. These individuals are scheduled to submit future articles: February – Antonette; March – Liza; April – Jackie W.; May – Jackie M.; June – Milli; July – Shirley; August – Jeanne; September – Wendy; October – Julian; November- John; December – Allison, January – Lee; February – Jody; March – Melissa. NJPA BETTER NEWSPAPER CONTEST Flyers on the upcoming contest were handed out. NIE PRESENTATION AT CIRCULATION MEETING: April 4th Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City • Cynthia is looking for a speaker who would be of interest to both NIE and circulation people. NJPA will pay travel expenses. Liza suggested Jim Abbott and Cynthia concurred. She will approach him. If you have alternate names, contact Cynthia. • Tom raised the issue of how the statewide committee could reach out to newspapers without NIE programs. Cynthia suggested perhaps writing a letter to these papers. Discussion followed that maybe we should do this type of presentation at the Annual Circulation Meeting. NAA RECOGNITION PROGRAM • Liza Mattison made a Powerpoint presentation on the NAA NIE Awards. This presentation was prepared by Jim Abbott and presented to the Pennsylvania NIE Committee, which Liza attended. • Hand-outs of the presentation were distributed. The KEY to a successful entry is measurable objectives. “If it can't be measured, it's not an objective.” • Called the Sophia Awards, the divisions and categories include: Division 1: General Excellence; Division 2: Category Awards; Category 1 – Original Curriculum; Category 2: Direct Mail/Marketing; Category 3: Literacy; Category 4: Collaborative Efforts; Category 5: New Media; Category 6: State or Regional NIE Organizations; Category 7: Special Projects; Division 3: Rookie of the Year. This year's deadline is March 1. • It was agreed that there should be a State NIE Committee entry. Cynthia will email committee members to accomplish this. Shirley and Antonette offered to help finalize the application package at NJPA offices. • Steve brought up his desire to see a regional NIE conference. Committee members liked the idea. • Liza will send Cynthia a list of curriculum materials put together by the PA NIE Committee. NIE WEEK Statewide ideas are needed. There is an NAA Study Guide for NIE Week available for apx. $25. NEXT MEETING: FEBRUARY 6TH MEETING ADJOURNED AT 1:35 PM.
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Minutes of the October 17, 2002, Meeting The meeting started at 11 a.m. at the New Jersey Press Association’s headquarters in West Trenton. ATTENDING: Cynthia Forster (Chair), Shirley Sasor (Vice-Chair), Tom Engleman (NJPA), Antonette Bomentre-Walter, John D'Achino, Steve Gondelman, Wendy Halle, Milli Kerner, Liza Mattison, Jackie Mickelburgh, Julian Rosado, Jeanne Schexnider, Jackie Wilson, Lee Williams, Zygmunt Wozniak MINUTES: Steve made a motion to accept the minutes of the June 13th meeting. The motion was seconded and approved without correction. FIRST UNION ESSAY CONTEST • A total of 12 papers participated. • Winning entries, total numbers of entries, and total number of schools submitting entries should be sent to Tom at NJPA by October 25th. Additionally, please send copies of any flyers that were mailed and any in-page copy. When winning entries are published, please send those, too. • There were more middle school entries than high school entries. • NIE Coordinators reported that information about the contest was distributed through superintendents' offices, direct mailings to schools, follow-up phone calls to teachers, letters to principals, emails, routine NIE back-to-school packages, newspaper web sites, and discussions with teachers at annual workshops. • Local prizes included movie tickets and Blockbuster gift certificates. Perhaps Great Adventure will donate tickets. Tom will let coordinators know about this. • Consensus: Hot Topics was not easy to work with. • Illinois NIE Committee will judge each paper's first place winner. State winners will be announced at the NJEA Convention. Coordinators of winning entries need to get name, address and SS# of students to Tom so he can purchase the savings bond prizes. • Special thanks to Committee Members and especially Wendy Hallee How remaining grant funds will be distributed: Whatever funds remain after paying Hot Topics and buying savings bonds for students will be divided among papers that submitted entries. Funds are to be used for the newspaper's NIE program. Tom will follow up with First Union/Wachovia about applying for a grant for 2003. OTHER BUSINESS Harrisburg: November 26th – Pennsylvania NIE Committee will be reviewing NAA General Excellence Awards in NIE and will have judges there to discuss how winners are selected. Liza has offered to drive interested people. InPrint Magazine: Missy Flynn will accept articles from NIE Coordinators that promote NIE programs starting in December. The following schedule was agreed upon, with these individuals responsible for getting articles to Missy: December – Cynthia; January – Steve; February – Antonette; March – Liza; April – Jackie Wilson; May – Jackie M.; June – Milli; July – Shirley; August – Jeanne; September – Wendy; October – Julian; November & December: TBD. Send article to and add a brief blurb on yourself. NJEA Convention • This year, we will have 2 adjoining booths instead of one. • Newspapers may put out individual materials, limited to one item per paper. Please ship in advance to Atlantic City Convention Center. Suggested items include lesson plans or newspaper activities. Steve will donate tabs as hand-outs. Tom will prepare a sign-up sheet. He has also invited all coordinators to dinner in Atlantic City. • The Star Ledger, NY Times and Gannett will have their own tables. • Volunteers to staff NIE booth include: Antonette (Thursday), Steve (Thursday afternoon and Friday from 1:00), Tom, Cynthia, and Jackie (Friday am). • NIE Poster: Alicia Luciano, Miss New Jersey will attend the convention to sign autographs on Friday. NJPA Contest: Cynthia attended the meeting about changing award system for NIE. The contest is run by Circulation – Better Newspaper Awards. Changes: 1 award to 2 awards in daily category; new curriculum and promotion: 2 for dailies; 1 for weeklies. Entry forms were distributed. NIE Presentation at Circulation Meeting: April 4th: Looking for a speaker; NJPA will pay travel expenses Next Meeting: December 5th - Bring ideas for NIE Week; New statewide sponsorship ideas; Ideas for website needed – contact Tom.
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Minutes of the August 1, 2002, Meeting The meeting started at 11 a.m. at the New Jersey Press Association’s headquarters in West Trenton. ATTENDING Cynthia Forster (Chair), Shirley Sasor (Vice-Chair), Antonette Bomentre-Walter, John D’Achino, Wendy Halle, Milli Kerner, Julian Rosado, Andrea Spaeth, Jackie Wilson. Milli Kerner made a motion to accept the minutes of the June 13th meeting. The motion was seconded Julian Rosado and approved without correction. GUEST SPEAKERS Neale S. Godfrey, Chairperson, Children’s Financial Network, Inc., Karen McMullen, Executive Director, Center for Financial Training , and Robert Desch, Director of Education, New Jersey Bankers Association Ms. Godfrey, author of 13 books including Money Doesn’t Grow On Trees, a New York Times list best-seller, made a presentation on the topic of financial literacy. Did you know that there are more people annually who declare bankruptcy than graduate from college? Ms. Godfrey is dedicated to educating our nation’s children about money and finance. She has developed a supplementary curriculum for Grades 1 – 6 on topics including money, banking and investments. She has teamed up with the Center for Financial Training with the goal of making this curriculum available in every elementary school in New Jersey. With financial support from the banking and corporate world, the curriculum is currently being used in 5,000 schools in 48 states at a cost of $600/classroom. They are looking for new partners - corporations, foundations, organizations, etc. - to help sponsor the curriculum in classrooms. Currently, their goal is to make New Jersey the national model for teaching financial literacy. With support from Senator Corzine, they are working toward mandating the teaching of financial literacy, and are sponsoring a financial summit on October 19 at Kean University. This full-day conference will begin at 8:30 a.m. NIE Coordinators are invited. The challenge they posed to the NIE Committee is: How do we reach your constituents? How can we partner with you to achieve our goal? Suggestions included sponsoring a contest, creating a kid’s newspaper, or possibly generating a survey to kick off at summit on the theme: Test Your Financial Literacy. Following the presentation and upon further discussion, it was the consensus of NIE committee members present that if they are willing to make available - at no cost to us - curriculum materials that tie into using the newspaper as a source, perhaps we can introduce it to the schools. FIRST UNION ESSAY CONTEST Wendy Halle reported for her committee on the parameters established for the upcoming essay contest. She handed out sample entry forms, rubrics and flyers. The tab created by Hot Topics, Live Without Hate, will be made available on CD-ROM for individual newspapers to reproduce. There were several issues raised about the contest rules and sample materials distributed. The committee agreed to allow faxed essays but not E-mailed ones, and to eliminate "Presentation" from the rubric. The flyer makes no mention of the local judging process, the right to reproduce the essay, or the NJPA luncheon invitation that will be extended to winners. Since it was approaching 2 p.m., coordinators were asked to review the hand-outs during the next few days and E-mail Wendy any corrections or omissions. Her E-mail address is whalle@gannett.com. When finalized, Wendy will E-mail the contest materials back to coordinators. ANNOUNCEMENTS Antonette handed out "Golf Fore Literacy" brochures. This golf outing will benefit the Newspaper-In-Education Program at the Burlington County Times. The next statewide NIE Committee meeting will be at 11 a.m. on October 17 at the NJPA headquarters in West Trenton. At that time, we will need to discuss the upcoming NJEA Convention and what materials individual newspapers may bring for the booth. It was agreed that Shirley Sasor would arrange a photo shoot with Miss New Jersey, similar to last year, for a poster. Following discussions with the Miss New Jersey organization, Shirley reported that Miss New Jersey will appear both days at our booth to sign autographs. The meeting adjourned at 2:00 p.m.
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Minutes of the June 13, 2002, Meeting The meeting started at 11 a.m. at the New Jersey Press Association's headquarters in West Trenton. ATTENDING: Cynthia Forster (Chair); Shirley Sasor (Vice-Chair); Tom Engleman (NJPA Director); John Achino, Antoinette Bementre-Walter; Melissa Edwards, Steve Gondelman, Wendy Halle, John Leach, Julian Rosal, Jeanne Schexnider, Lee Williams, Zygmunt Wozniak ANNOUNCEMENTS Tom Engleman encouraged attendees to look into the upcoming NJPA Golf Outing. Sponsorships are still available. The event will be held at the Royce Brook Country Club to benefit the NJPA Foundation. International Literacy Month is September. OLD BUSINESS Recap of April ABC Presentation Cynthia Forster gave a recap of Joe Saloman’s April presentation to NIE Coordinators. Recap of NAA Convention in Hershey Cynthia Forster reported that the annual NAA Convention in Hershey drew approximately 210 attendees. Eleven New Jersey newspapers were represented. Workshops included: Grant-writing; Basic Salesmanship; and Workshops Out-Of-The-Box. All the workshops and general sessions were recorded. Information about purchasing tapes will be available on the Verizon website. Next year’s convention will be held in Chicago. Hand-outs from sessions were passed around. Cynthia may invite the Director of New Jersey Reads to a future NIE meeting to explore ways we can partner with Verizon, maybe a literary guide. Literacy Unites Us Conference (Elizabeth New Jersey) Melissa Edwards and Cynthia Forster reported on their attendance at the Literacy Unites Us conference for for adult literacy tutors. NEW BUSINESS School Violence Essay Contest (First Union Grant: $11,000) Wendy Halle reported on committee discussions. They are looking for a curriculum to purchase. Hot Topics has a $700 tab: Conflict Resolution or Living Without Hate. Ten newspapers expressed an interest in participating in the contest. By unanimous vote, it was agreed that there would be two levels of awards: Grades 5 — 8 and 9 — 12. Essays must be 500 words or less. Students may only send in 1 entry. Local entries must be postmarked by October 11th. Each newspaper will choose 3 local winners in each level. These must be forwarded to Tom Engleman by October 18th and will require a parental signature. Tom will arrange to have them judged by an out-of-state NIE organization. After much discussion, it was decided the topic would be: How We Can Live Without Hate. Other considerations included: How Can I Live Without Hate (4votes); What I Can Do To Stop The Hate (4); How To Live Without Hate (1 vote); and Hate Hurts (1 vote). Steve, Jean, Antoinette, Wendy, and Jackie Wilson will prepare a flyer. Readership Programs Steve Gondelman shared how the Atlantic City Press and the New York Times are partnering to build student readership on college campuses. This combination of a local and national newspaper seems to work well as one does not overshadow the other. Local colleges are beginning to promote the program. Web Site Renovation Please send Tom an email with a link to your NIE website, if you have one. The NJPA website is being redesigned and can now include curriculum links, lessons online, local workshops, essay contests etc. Election of Officers Cynthia Forster and Shirley Sasor were re-elected by unanimous vote to a third term. Next Meeting Date: August 1
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Minutes of the April 5, 2002, Meeting The meeting started at 2:30 p.m. at the Princeton Marriot Hotel, U.S. Route 1, Princeton. ABC Rules Presentation by Joe Salamone of the Audit Bureau of Circulation. He described the recently updated ABC rules on counting educational subscriptions Next meeting
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Minutes of the February 7, 2002, Meeting The meeting started at 11 a.m. at the New Jersey Press Association's headquarters in West Trenton. ATTENDING: |
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