Place Name: First Place Contestant Name: Stevenson High School Entry Title: Statesman Entry Credit: Adi Jaiswal, Ansh Aggarwal Judge Comment: Clean header & interactive homepage elements. I like the newsletter call to action button in header/footer. Great use of in-article flourish polls and graphs. Content is current and has internal/external linking. Consider adding article tags, to help aggregate content and improve SEO. Nice graphics for feature articles. Multimedia elements could use a main image or placeholder podcast image. Letter to Editor form for reader-generated content is nice. If possible, keep the multimedia section updated with new content, when possible. Mobile is responsive. Passed core web vitals on desktop. Well done, Statesman!
Place Name: Second Place Contestant Name: Downers Grove South High School Entry Title: Blueprint Entry Credit: Juliana Conyer, Kate Dziewinski, Liam Wells, Olivia Velazquez, Nia Ayala, Abby Heavrin, Yoldi Villa, Adrian Herres, Elsa Kramer, Grace Lube, Mikella Marchrzak, Ky'm Young, Sebastain Blanco, Sophia Blanco, Ren Espinoza Judge Comment: Nice header with breaking news ticker. Footer includes about & contact info. Well organized navigation and homepage layout. Current content with in-article galleries, pull quotes, tagging, and some internal/external linking. Multimedia videos are nice. Consider adding a multimedia section to showcase this work. Good Opinion category including cartoons, columns, editorials, and letter to the editor. Mobile is responsive and passed core web vitals. Great site, Blueprint!
Place Name: Third Place Contestant Name: Glenbrook South High School Entry Title: The Oracle website Entry Credit: Kaitlyn Jiang, Sofia Cole, Sarah Park, Sara Rahman, Kate Shambo, Aarya Nigam, David Schleicher, Mady Yap Judge Comment: Clean header and well organized navigation. Content is current and nice use of graphics. Try to give photo, illustration, stock photo credits with every image. Consider adding tags & internal/external links in more articles. I like the web exclusives section drawing attention to online content. Responsive on mobile. Passed core web vitals. Great job, Glenbrook South!
Place Name: Honorable Mention Contestant Name: New Trier High School Entry Title: The New Trier News Entry Credit: New Trier News 2024-2025 Staff Judge Comment: Clean header with social icons & search bar. Organized navigation & graphic dropdowns. Nice category layout pages. I like the multimedia section with current videos & podcasts. Newsletter subscribe is a plus. Some articles incorporate a lot of best practices including pull quotes, internal/external linking, inline photos with credits, tags and in some cases spotlight links. Passed core web vitals. Well done, New Trier News!
Place Name: Honorable Mention Contestant Name: Huntley High School Entry Title: Huntleyvoice.com Entry Credit: Irene Banerjee, Emma Christenson, Alexis Davis Judge Comment: Good to see social links in the header & footer. Good navigation. Articles look like there are internal/external links and tags. Photos have captions & source credits. However, there needs to be some consistency with sizing & optimization. Well done on creating video & audio content! Consider tagging these so they can be aggregated & linked in your Media section. Site passed core web vitals. Good job, Huntley!
