Carmen Vescia, Matvari Maharaj and Sabrina Villanueva-Avalos are all first-year staffers on the newspaper at Sequoia High School in Redwood City, Calif.

When their adviser, Kim Vinh, told them about the opportunity to apply for scholarships that would cover the registration fees and possibly allow them to attend next week’s JEA/NSPA Spring National Scholastic Journalism Convention in San Francisco, there was no hesitation.

During her three years working on the yearbook, Whitney High School senior Lanina Simonsen watched many of her classmates go on trips to national conventions. Due to the cost, she was never one of them.

“I was always a little jealous of everyone that would come back, because they would always have little inside jokes about a certain restaurant they ate at, or a place they went,” Simonsen said.

A short trip later this month across the bay should expose students from Fremont High School’s Media Academy in Oakland, Calif., to a whole new world.

Lisa Shafer, a journalism teacher at the school, has taken students to JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism conventions in the past. With the spring convention in San Francisco this month, cost will be less of a factor and she can take more than a few students.

When your school specializes in journalism, it seems like a safe bet there will be a group attending the JEA/NSPA Spring National High School Journalism Convention this month in San Francisco.

That’s certainly the case for the yearbook and newspaper students from Daniel Pearl Magnet High School in Van Nuys, Calif., but it’s not quite that easy. According to adviser Adriana Chavira, any student who wants to attend a convention still has to raise the money.