Former advisor publishes book

By Mejo Liao

Former Chronicle Advisor Kathleen Neumeyer published her book “Advising the Chronicle: How I taught high school journalism students to run billion-dollar companies (and you can too).” Neumeyer was the Communications Department Head for 24 years, overseeing 192 issues of e Chronicle.

Neumeyer said she wrote the book to share how high school journalism a ected the careers of her former students after reading an article by Zillow CEO Spencer Rasco ’93 (Sophia ’23, Luke ’27).

“My book was inspired by a column written by [Rasco ] who was the co-editor of the Chronicle my rst year as the full time advisor, 1992 to 1993,” Neumeyer said. “He wrote a column on fortune. com on Sept. 1, 2015, with the headline ‘My High School Journalism Teacher Taught Me How to Run Billion-Dollar Companies.’ His point was that high school journalism prepares students for almost any career they decide to pursue, not just in journalism.”

Rasco said he is honored to have inspired Neumeyer’s book.

“It is humbling to think that I was able to play a role in inspiring [Neumeyer] to write a book about her experience at Harvard-Westlake because she was such an instrumental teacher and mentor to me,” Rasco said. “To think that the roles are now somehow reversed, that I have helped return the favor by inspiring her in this stage of her career, is incredibly rewarding.”

Neumeyer said she proceeded to interview students to understand how high school journalism a ected their future careers, especially those that are not journalism-centered.

“I interviewed more than 50 former students and asked them if there was anything they learned in high school journalism that they still use,” Neumeyer said. “ ey outlined for me all the ways e

Chronicle prepared them to design theme parks and video games, to program streaming services, to run school districts and major sports enterprises, to practice law and medicine and nonpro ts. A former student who is a rabbi said that what he learned from journalism is the most important of his rabbinic skill set.”

Rasco said he hopes that educators and coaches alike reading Neumeyer’s book will learn from her example and teach the next successful students.

“[Neumeyer] was a phenomenal teacher and treated her students with enormous maturity,” Rasco said. “She was one of the rst adults that I remember treating me like an adult even though I was still a student, and the trust that she placed in all of us inspired her students to rise to the occasion. Hopefully, other educators will read [Neumeyer’s] book and become even better instructors, mentors and coaches to generations of future students.” mindful of. On the ip side, I’ve noticed throughout the year that we haven’t been so great at promoting school spirit.”

Kimura said the meeting was a great opportunity for making friends and understanding more about how each high school and their student leadership functioned.

“[I got an] understanding [of] how other people view things that I value like DEI e orts or inclusivity, school spirit and topics like that,” said Kimura. “It was interesting to hear other student leaders’ perspectives on those things and how they work at their schools. As a school, I think it’s always great to build relationships with other independent high schools in the area. Since there’s a lot of fake competition between us where we kind of roast each other, I think it’s nice to come together for the purpose of unity.”

McNamee said she feels the event was a success and wants to continue meetings in the future.

“Our informal name for this council is the Los Angeles Sister School Committee,” McNamee said. “ e group had just been living on a group chat, [so] I wanted to bring that to life and make it a more o cial event. I really wish Notre Dame had been able to come to it, and I would like to expand more and have all of Buckley because a lot of Buckley was missing. But, I was pleased with how the rst round went, and I’d love to see more collaboration in the future.”

B-POSITIVE: e HW Parents Association’s blood drive was hosted in Chalmers East and West. All Upper School students at least 16 years of age were eligible to donate their blood to the school’s Spring Blood Drive.