New Scholastic Magazine Group Formed

Posted on June 30, 1999

In a restructuring of its multiple magazine businesses, Scholastic Inc. has announced that its Classroom Magazine Division will join Scholastic's Consumer and Professional Magazine Division to create the Scholastic Magazine Group. The initiative also includes plans to develop a major presence for Scholastic's magazines on the company's newly designed Internet project for school and home learning.

The announcement was made by Richard Robinson, Chairman, President and CEO of Scholastic Inc. Robinson also announced that the division will be headed by Hugh Roome, Executive Vice President. Reporting to Roome will be: Greg Worrell, Vice President, Sales and Marketing; Steve Palm, Vice President, Scholastic Marketing Partners; and Fran Reilly, Director of Business Development.

Also reporting to Roome will be David Goddy, Vice President and Editor in Chief of the Scholastic Magazine Group. The editorial staffs of the classroom magazines and Instructor will continue to report to Goddy, who joined Scholastic in 1984 and has served as an Editorial Director and as Editor in Chief of Classroom Magazines. He is supported by Editorial Directors Rebecca Bondor and Emily Sachar, and Director of Editorial Design, Audrey Shachnow.

In making the announcement, Robinson said, "The benefits obtained by combining all of Scholastic's magazines into one division are enormous for our teacher, student and parent customers. Scholastic's goal has always been to create the best products, supported with the best service and offered at the best possible price. This restructuring allows us to share the benefits of these new economies of scale with our customer base of teachers, children and parents. We also want to provide the most effective leadership for our magazines as we move toward the 21st century and find new ways to make the information and reading we deliver through our magazines even more relevant in the Internet age."

The change also includes an editorial initiative to increase the use of Scholastic's popular characters such as Clifford the Big Red Dog, Ms. Frizzle from Scholastic's The Magic School Bus, and best-selling book series such as Dear America and Animorphs into the content of the classroom magazines. Scholastic's 35 classroom magazines will join the company's magazine publishing for adults and consumers which includes Scholastic's professional titles Instructor, Scholastic Early Childhood Today, and Coach and Athletic Director, as well as its parenting magazine Scholastic Parent and Child, which has a 1.2 million circulation.