Abington Friends School stands on the shoulders of a diverse and innovative student body. We build community through our creative voices, making us a collaborative force that will keep asking questions along finding solutions in school and everyday life. As members of this inquiring community, we felt it was essential for students to have a space to foster and develop ideas in an effort to speak our truth.
Late during the 2022-2023 school year, we had the inspiration to restart some format of a by-students-for-students news outlet after we noticed that there wasn’t anything in the school that gave the opportunity for students to share opinions and news with each other in a timely and open manner.
Morning assembly was perpetually too short, the occasional Instagram post or email blast was just not cutting it, and “This Week at AFS,” while it is a great resource for parents and families to learn about the school, is not student-driven.
We thought there should be a place for students to learn about the goings-on of student life from fellow students in a less censored and teacher-occupied space. Friends Education encourages students to speak their truth, giving them the confidence to advocate for what they believe, in an effort to bring justice in school and in life. Quaker Education motivates students to embrace that they are leaders and that being a leader comes in different forms because no one was created to be the same.
Society deems difference as something to fear, and Friends Education contradicts this understanding by defining differences in truth, perspective, and background as innovative and beautiful.
AFS hasn’t had a student newspaper since 2008, and we felt there was enough talent in the school to restart this outlet for creative students who don’t necessarily have a place to write or photograph other than for school work.
Luckily for us, the teachers and administrators seemed eager to help us in our efforts, and within just 6 months of our inspiration, The Blue and White had its first issue done.
Our goal in bringing back the newspaper is to unite the student body and find ways to relate after connection has been lost through the pandemic years. The Blue and White aims to create space for the student body to be fully expressive in transforming thoughts into actions, in order to build an innovative and collaborative community across all lines at Abington Friends School. Our mission is to accurately tell the story of Abington Friends School, and with this, we promise to prioritize respect in an effort to achieve journalism integrity.
We want to develop stories students are going to read that are relevant to the world we’re growing up in. We’re hoping to build an inclusive space that respects all perspectives and will result in bringing the AFS community together.
We understand our responsibility as journalists to set moral standards, withhold bias, and report from all perspectives. We believe that successfully upholding these standards will strengthen the Abington Friends community as we plan to use truth to establish justice.
