State Convention

kentucky high school
journalism association

Status of the 2010 KHSJA
State Convention and Contest

The annual KHSJA state convention, scheduled for May 4 and 5, 2010, at the Crowne Plaza in Louisville has been rescheduled for Nov. 8 and 9, 2010, at the same location.

Why have we rescheduled the convention? Blame it on snow days and their impact on statewide testing. More about that below in the Background section.

In the meantime, the change in date means some other changes too:

--Contest deadlines have been extended.

Yearbook entries,
which had been due March 10, are now due March 24.

Broadcast entries,
which had been due March 17, are now due March 31.

Newspaper entries,
which had been due March 24, are now due April 7.

--Contest results will be announced via the www.khsja.org web site by the end of May 2010. However, the awards themselves – plaques and certificates – will be distributed at the convention in November. If teachers wish to make arrangements to pick up their awards at our Frankfort office after the results have been announced and before the convention in November, we will work with them on a case-by-case basis.

--We plan to introduce some new attractions at the fall convention – some things we think people will enjoy – things we haven’t done before at our convention! Stay tuned for details.

BACKGROUND INFO

As we all know, the winter produced more snow than Kentucky has seen in years. That resulted in many school snow days across the state. That, in turn, has forced the state to look at rescheduling statewide school testing. And although no firm decisions have been made yet by the state Department of Education, the odds are good the new testing dates will conflict with our original May 4 and 5 dates.

The likely effect of that would be to cut attendance to the point where KHSJA would likely owe a significant sum of money to the Crowne Plaza to compensate the hotel for its loss of revenue. KHSJA simply cannot afford such a large expense. From a business standpoint, our only option was to reschedule the convention for another time within the calendar year. But the hotel did not have the amount of space our convention needs available for the remainder of this school year.

Taking all these issues into consideration, it was felt the most prudent thing to do was to announce now that the convention has been set instead for Nov. 8 and 9.

However, a fall convention offers some tangible benefits; e.g. no conflict with school testing, little chance of weather-related scheduling complications and best of all, your students will hear some great speakers and presenters early enough in the school year to actually put what they learn to use. It’s difficult to do that with a spring convention often just a few weeks before the end of the school year. On the flip side, we, unfortunately, lose the element of surprise at the convention in announcing the contest winners. But we plan to offer a quality learning opportunity for your students and hope teachers and schools will support our event and still attend the convention even though the contest results will already be known.