Aika Villa speaks all Spanish at home with her family. So when the McHenry Community High School student journalist went to work at the McHenry Messenger student newspaper, Villa suggested producing a Spanish edition.
Villa, a senior and current print managing editor, saw that suggestion become reality this year with the first all Spanish edition in March. The McHenry Messenger staff produced a second Spanish newspaper on Friday, April 24.
“We got a lot of positive feedback,” Villa said.
The student-produced McHenry Messenger maintains an active news website where many of the stories are also available in Spanish. In addition to the news site, about 20 print newspapers, mostly broadsheets, are printed and distributed each year. Three of those newspapers are magazine-style publications.
Like the English version of the newspaper, the Spanish editions are available throughout the Upper Campus and Freshman Campus buildings at McHenry Messenger newsstands.
Dane Erbach, McHenry Community High School English teacher and newspaper advisor, said offering a publication in Spanish has been something he’s been thinking about for a while. Social Worker and former Spanish instructor Otto Corzo suggested it several years ago.
It just all came together this year with the translation help mostly from students and some staff as well.
According to the most recent Illinois School Report Card, nearly 12 percent of the students at McHenry Community High School are English learners.
Villa said she previously had to translate her work in the McHenry Messenger, so she’s glad to see it come out in Spanish, too. “It’s something that’s needed,” Villa said.
While many colleges offer a Spanish version of their newspapers, it is still fairly unique to find Spanish newspapers at the high school level. Erbach said a lot of his staffers working on it are graduating this year, but he hopes to see this continue.
