How to improve school newspaper

Basically, my school newspaper is more of a PR piece than an actual compilation of well written articles. The “editor in chief” position has, unfortunately, become somewhat a resume buffer over the past few years. We’ve literally had to offer writers extra credit because people refused to participate.

Another factor is that the papers is a collaboration between the boys and girls schools but for some weird reason the boys have final say and seem to cut out quality articles for terrible ones (not being mean, just no sources for information and obviously under edited). For example, they took out my interview with an NYT Bestselling author for a piece about a book with far more obscurity and irrelevance.

I fully intend to devote hours to the newspaper next year as editor-in-chief and attempt to salvage whatever I can. In the best case scenario, we’ll be nationally recognized. Worst case, minimal yet conspicuous improvement. I already have a rough plan of what I want to do, but advice would be more than welcome. Does anyone have a serious newspaper at their school? And if so, what are some pointers you could give?