District News

Congratulations to Bernards High School junior Ella Patel, for winning Best of SNO (School Newspapers Online)! On October 24th, Crimson Advisor Heather Hunkele received the exciting news that Ella’s opinion article, “Journalism may be Eligible for 21st Century Credit” was selected for publication. This is the first Best of SNO for the 2024-2025 school year and the first entry submitted by the Crimson. “This means to me that we are getting better; we are writing better articles and doing better research,” said Hunkele. “Ella has a civic mind. She loves to research problems or situations that impact people. She likes to jump right in!”

Ella has been a member of the Crimson staff for three years, working her way up to Junior Editor-in-Chief. She works closely with seniors Ari Rosen and Claire Taylor, who are Co-Editors-in-Chief. Last year, the Crimson submitted roughly 75 articles and received recognition for two submissions, although much later in the school year. 

Best of SNO recognizes excellent work, and the time and effort it takes to produce such high quality articles. In addition to polished and perfect pieces, they are looking for engaging and relevant stories that tackle important topics on local or global levels, and that provoke meaningful discussion. “Ella tackling the research on an issue that has affected our program for years is going to make a difference for so many future Crimson writers,” said Hunkele. “I was even contacted by a school in Maryland who is using her article as research for their program.”

So far this year, Best of SNO has received 3,200 entries and has only published 500 of them, or 15%. Of those, only two have been schools in New Jersey. And of the two New Jersey schools, one was Bernards High School thanks to Ella Patel. Best in SNO may be focused on writing, but from a mathematics angle, the numbers clearly illustrate just how special this win was!