Article Submission Guidelines

8/20/2023 12:00 am

Function:  To provide brief, accurate information to Island Park parents and staff in an interesting and attention grabbing format.

The Eagle eNews is meant to be a tiered information system with summary information displayed and more detailed information attached/linked to the article. The Eagle eNews is not meant to be a traditional newsletter displaying full articles. To increase efficiency and readership, our aim is to keep the scroll length to a reasonably short length for people who read info on mobile devices.

Eagle eNews Article Guidelines:

• What is displayed in the Eagle eNews? Synopsis such as (1) Attention Grabbing Headline and opening sentence(s), (2) brief, factual, bulleted summary including who, what, where, when, why (max. 2 lines summary preferred)  (3) websites with more info, (4) Picture (yours or we can select a stock image) 
• What if I have a longer article? If you submit a full article without a summary, Eagle Editor(s) will summarize for you and attach the full article via the “Read More” link. Ex. Documents longer than 2 short paragraphs, reports, document with multiple photos to share with parents.

Length of Article:  In order to keep Eagle eNews fresh and interesting, we prefer not to run the same article more than twice. 

If you are promoting an event that will occur more than one month out, we recommend the following:

• Let us know and we will put the event in the “Upcoming Events” area of the Eagle eNews
• Submit a brief “Save the Date” article
• Two issues out: submit your full article
• Issue right before event:  submit a new promotion article

Feature Article:  Editors may select one article as a focus for the Eagle eNews that corresponds with PTA events or initiatives.  Feature articles will be longer than normal articles. 

Picture Submissions:  Images over 350KB will be compressed and may not be inserted due to size.  Pictures must be .jpg, .jpeg  or .png format.  Photo permissions are NOT needed to put children’s pictures in the Eagle E-News (note: this is a change from previous years).  If a parent does not want his/her child’s photo published please let them know to turn in the “Notification of Rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act” form found in the Parent Pack. A copy of this is also available from Carole Siebert in the Island Park main office. 

Document Submissions:  If a document is needed to accompany a submission (such as a registration form), documents must be in PDF format. 

Article Submission Deadlines:  Articles are due by end of day on the Wednesday before the distribution date.  The Eagle eNews is distributed every other Sunday as appropriate with the school calendar. Articles are to be submitted to editor@islandparkpta.org. 

Incomplete Submissions:  If Editors have a question/issue that needs to be addressed before they can complete inserting the article into the Eagle eNews, they will make all reasonable attempts to contact the author.  If the author does not respond with an answer, Editor has the authority to suspend the inclusion of the article until said questions or issues are resolved. 

PTA Communications Guidelines