Since its founding in 1994, the Palette strives to inform and entertain LJCDS students and faculty while providing a means for students to practice journalistic writing. However, to fully understand the impact of our school paper, we must explore its evolution.
The Past:
The Palette was created in 1994 by Marisa Sandoff (‘95) and Neil Martinsen-Burell (‘95). As a reinvention of a defunct, earlier paper with a new name, new leadership, and new ideas, popularity quickly soared. Sandoff started it because of her interest in media and her consternation that LJCDS had no newspaper-style student publication. She recruited Martinsen-Burell to help her with layout, typing, and printing; they worked on the Palette together until they graduated.
Martinsen-Burell wanted to make the Palette into something that could speak with student voices. He saw the views of young people as equally important to those of adults and wished for LJCDS to provide a way for students to participate in writing. The Palette influenced his life, from his design experience helping with the layout of his PhD thesis to the printed paper sparking a lifelong “fascination with the tangible.”
Sandoff and Martinsen-Burell didn’t originally expect the paper to survive. At this year’s reunion, Sandoff asked if the school had a newspaper and was astonished when she was told that the Palette still existed after more than thirty years, “through sheer force of will, spit and duct tape, Mountain Dew and computer labs.” The Palette meant (and means) so much to Marisa Sandoff, and she’s so incredibly pleased that the newspaper has survived and thrived.
In 2022, Ms. Shaul took over the Palette, initially leaving the paper in its existing online format, and trying to reinvigorate the ideas of paper copies to be shared in Palette-focused advisories. Originally the Palette was mainly LJCDS-focused. With Ms. Shaul’s encouragement, the Palette includes news articles and analyzes modern movements in both technical and artistic realms.
The Present:
For the first time in five years, the Palette produced a paper copy in Fall, 2025. Students were encouraged to read the paper in their English classes, and copies were available in almost every classroom. Though the paper had nearly fallen into anonymity, with writers and editors finding their classmates’ lack of knowledge about the Palette disheartening, this school year the paper experienced a revival.
The 2025-2026 school year brought the Palette recognition through distribution and through Instagram. With the help of social media manager, Lucia Araya, the paper’s Instagram page began to flourish (follow us at @thepaletteljcds). Our team also added comic strips, thanks to Avery Hoblit’s artistic acumen, and ran a stand during the Winter Carnival with Mad Libs and quizzes. With these new ways of communicating with our audience, the Palette is on the rise.
When seniors graduate, the Palette embraces new leadership. While we will miss our 25-26 Editors-in-Chief, Asher Digius and Julia Zhuang, we are delighted to announce the promotion of Calla Taylor from editor to Editor-in-Chief. We will also have two new editors next year: Marijke Bohl and Sedona Lineback.
The Future:
What will happen to the Palette next year, or in the years after that? We can’t be certain. However, Calla and Ms. Shaul have some ideas.
Ms. Shaul would like to see the expansion of our social media outreach. She believes that this growth would parallel nicely with our print editions (hopefully two every year) and our quarterly online editions. She hopes for the addition of news reports through video to fill the time between editions. Ms. Shaul also coordinates visits from journalism professionals, and we all appreciate the knowledge and inspiration from the guests.
Calla is excited to take on the role of editor-in-chief next year. She hopes to grow the number of student participants and increase readership.
