As the school year ends, we thought it would be a good time to reflect on the past year of Green Wave Gazette accomplishments.

Below are the top 40 stories by page views and their authors for 2014/2015. School and community news stories led the way, with a smattering of entertainment and social issue stories getting some attention.

With the help of social media, especially the “Everything Weymouth” Facebook page, Kristina Sullivan’s story about her job at Dunkin Donuts topped the list. Other stories drew hits from our Twitter presence, and reposts at the “Life in Abington,” “Green Wave Boosters” and other relevant group pages on Facebook.  Slideshows did really well, with six spots in the top 40. Alyssa Devlin’s opinion piece “Too Much Focus On Grades” and Ashling Geary’s review of “Newsies” on Broadway continued to receive consistent attention even though they were published during the previous school year.

We published 113 stories, and 47 of them were written by non-staff contributors, most (46) written by students participating in Ms. Pflaumer’s Students Write to be Heard (SWB2H) program, where students earn grades for having their work published.

Two stories, Kim Phan’s interview with Jilliane Mortimer about her efforts to highlight Women’s History Month and Jilliane’s review of Ed Sheeran’s concert at the Xfinity Center were recognized by School News On-line (SNO) and included in their Best of SNO publication. The Green Wave Gazette was also awarded the Badge for Site Excellence by SNO. Associate Editors Kim Phan and Ian MacLeod were recognized at student award ceremonies for their tireless efforts to produce this newspaper.

Our new glossy print version and the presence of this webpage could not happen without the major support of the Abington Education Foundation and Abington Bank, and our advertisers Bemis Drug, Independence Insurance, Three Generations Travel, Colorful Wallets and Attorney  R. Andrew Burbine. We thank them very much for their support.

When compared to last year’s numbers, the number of readers increased by 25% (from 5,160 to 6,358), and the total number of page views (includes repeat views and multiple page views for one viewer) increased by 24% (from 18,900 to 23,100). We are very happy with that and hope to do even better in the future. We hope you enjoyed reading the Green Wave Gazette this year and hope to see you next year!