Not many know about the School Newspapers Online website, also known as SNO. SNO is used all over the world by school newspapers, which gives students the ability to express their thoughts and provide news to their communities. WCPSS has decided to ban SNO due to login security and the chance that data may be stolen. SNO sites will be blocked on June 30, 2025. However, sites whose contracts expire before that date will end earlier because their advisers will be unable to renew their services, including our “Roaring Bengals.”
SNO makes publishing school newspapers very easy. SNO also has their own award system that newspaper programs can compete in. “Roaring Bengals” won SNO’s Distinguished Site and a Best of SNO award this year. Last Year, the North Carolina Scholastic Media Association (NCSMA) awarded the “Roaring Bengals” third place for graphics, editorial, and news; second place in sports; an honorable mention in design; and an All-North Carolina Award. The “Roaring Bengals” newspaper wouldn’t have won NCSMA’s awards without SNO.
SNO can also help students in newspaper classes make a portfolio of their work for colleges and job interviews. It is a good tool to use when going into a similar field of work such as editing or marketing. If the Roaring Bengals staff is unable to find a replacement for SNO, it means the student body will no longer have a newspaper. FVHS students need a newspaper so they are able to know all the events going on in school and how people feel about it.
Junior Faith Lasko said, “I used SNO to publish articles along with making slideshows and other multimedia things.”
Lasko explained that she hasn’t seen anything like SNO and enjoyed how easy it was to use. She only had to click a few buttons and copy and paste the article into the website. Sometimes it could be difficult to figure things out, but that was more “user error” than an issue with SNO
“Without SNO, it would be difficult to publish articles,” said Lasko.
Principal Robert James explained that SNO uses WordPress, and WordPress is hacked 90,000 times per day which makes SNO dangerous.
James said, “I know one of the problems we face right now is not having a comparative platform like SNO to move to, and that’s caused a lot of angst and anxiety with teachers understandably.”
James doesn’t know of an alternative the “Roaring Bengals” could use, but he is worried about FVHS’s security.
“At the end of the day, student and employee security is the #1 factor – especially in light of Power School being successfully hacked last month world-wide,” said James.
School newspapers around Wake County will have to find a new source soon. Alongside FVHS’ newspaper, Athens Drive, Broughton, Enloe, Green Hope, Green Level, Millbrook, Panther Creek, Wake Forest, and Wakefield High Schools will soon have all of their hard work erased from history.
