NFHS News Transitions to High School Today

By Robert F. Kanaby, NFHS Executive Director, and Ron Laird, NFHS President

Change is inevitable.

Some avoid it at all costs because of the challenges it can present. Some seek it out when necessary because it keeps ideas fresh and enables organizations to grow.

Here at the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), we have accepted that latter axiom to be true. An opportunity for change has approached us once again, and we have enthusiastically embraced it.

The organization has produced the NFHS News since 1983, and in June published its final issue. Beginning with this September 2007 issue, High School Today will succeed it as the news and professional development magazine of the NFHS. This ambitious challenge represents change at its fullest.

Production of a new national magazine was a part of the 2005-2008 NFHS Strategic Plan approved by the 51 member associations of the NFHS. The goals were to promote the mission and core values of education-based athletics and activities, along with reaching a wider audience throughout the country, including principals, superintendents and school board members.

This new publication will be published eight times a year, September through May, with a combined December-January issue. It will expand upon the NFHS News format to reach a broader target audience while addressing topics of interest to its reading audience.

With the project, we have incorporated three primary modifications. These include changing the look of the publication, changing the circulation and changing the content.

When you received this issue of High School Today, you probably noticed several physical and aesthetic differences. The new publication feels like a magazine with its slick cover and pages, as opposed to the newspaper feel the NFHS News had in the past.

In an effort to be more consistent with the NFHS Officials' Quarterly and NFHS Coaches' Quarterly, the cover will feature a photograph instead of an article.

Finally, although our initial issues will be 32 pages, we have plans to expand future issues to 48 pages.

The second change deals with who will receive High School Today. Currently, the NFHS News' circulation is 12,000, reaching all state associations; National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association members; NFHS Speech, Debate and Theatre Association members; NFHS Music Association members; and subscribers. In the future, we hope to reach 75,000 readers with High School Today. In addition to the aforementioned groups, it will also be mailed to superintendents, school board members and principals, among others.

The final, and possibly most important, change can be seen in the new magazine's content. In the past, the NFHS News contained mostly news articles. High School Today will still contain that hard news, but will also include professional development articles and timely features. Through that process, we hope to both strengthen the quality of the publication and to serve more publics than ever before.

In order to facilitate this content change, we have formed a talented and experienced editorial committee for High School Today that will meet semi-annually in February and August to focus on developing and producing content that will constitute the magazine. The listing of the High School Today Publications Committee is printed on page 5. These individuals will work on the publication with Bruce Howard and John Gillis of the NFHS Publications/Communications Department.

From a historical perspective, the publication started in 1980 as the National Federation Press, which for three volumes (until 1983), was published monthly.

Three years later, it became the NFHS News, which ran from 1983 to 2007. During that time, the News went through six design changes.

We now stand at the beginning of a third transformation. This change is revolutionary, and not just evolutionary as occurred in the past.

Any good change takes time, and we are prepared to dedicate ourselves to the challenging project we have begun. After all, success is not reached by standing still. It is attained by moving forward in the right direction.