The Carlmont High School website.

Student journalists at Carlmont High School in the Peninsula city of Belmont won a prestigious award over the weekend at the National High School Journalism Convention in San Diego.

Carlmont’s www.scotscoop.com was honored with a Pacemaker Award by the National Scholastic Press Association.

“It’s significant for a lot of reasons,” Justin Raisner, an English and journalism teacher who is the adviser to the journalism program, told the San Mateo Daily Journal. “One is the recognition of what we do and just the affirmation that we are doing it right; but not only are we doing it right, but we’re doing it as well as, or better than, anyone else in the country.”

“For high school students, this is really exciting because a lot want to pursue media or journalism in college. So we’re hoping this will open a lot of doors that some students might get recruited from colleges and maybe get some scholarships,” Raisner said.

Students update the website daily with news stories, and the site attracts 6,000 unique visitors a month, according to Raisner.

The site is currently run by student editors-in-chief Sarah Klieves and Shira Stein.

The students post online content on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook as CarlmontHighlander.

Out of 1,112 participants, the following Carlmont students were honored with awards:

Justine Phipps, sports writing, “superior” (a.k.a. top ranking) 

Dana Benelli, news writing, “superior” (a.k.a. top ranking) 

Shira Stein, news editing and headline writing, “excellent” (a.k.a. second best) 

Karissa Tom, graphic design: advertising, “excellent” (a..ka. second best) 

Jessica Adair, feature writing, honorable mention 

Isabella Paragas, editorial cartooning, honorable mention