Text of JEA letter to Stevenson admins, links to overall coverage
In response the ongoing prior review situation and restraint at Stevenson High in Lincolnshire, Illinois, JEA President Jack Kennedy recently sent school officials the following letter. Links to Chicago area coverage of the situation follow the letter:
Dr. Twadell,
I am a long-time admirer of Stevenson High School, having read numerous scholarly articles by faculty members on Professional Learning Communities and Advanced Placement courses, having followed “The Statesman” for over 20 years, and even having visited your campus just three years ago. I have always imagined Stevenson as a bastion of academic excellence, an example of the comprehensive American public high school at its very best.
Events involving “The Statesman” over the past year have certainly rattled that perception. I have no standing to get into particulars of how events have unfolded, but to have a second instance of the school administration and board leadership coming down on the side of squelching discussion and debate in a newspaper that has a long history of being an open forum for student expression is deeply troubling.
Garnering national attention is certainly not something new for Stevenson, but that this national attention is now so negative must also trouble you. I represent the national organization that supports scholastic journalism educators, and their students by extension, and I hope you will believe me when I say that your school is rapidly becoming the symbol of censorship in American schools. Instead of discussions about the progressive curriculum and fine instruction at the school, journalism educators from across the country are now discussing extraordinary pressure being applied to faculty advisers and administrative attempts to act as “super editors.” This micromanaging has no end. If someone outside the classroom has the power to approve or deny the mere coverage of certain issues, is there any doubt that we eventually find assistant principals correcting spelling, asking for more sources, and quibbling over how a photograph is presented?
Imagine applying the same sort of micromanaging to a football coach, with each play call being approved by some assistant athletic director sitting in the press box. That would be intolerable. Imagine threatening to simply cancel the next football game due to a poor performance by the team last week. In fact, imagine demanding absolute perfection from any sports team or course in the school. That sort of school climate would be equally intolerable.
I hope we can agree that our job, from board members to administration to classroom instructors, is to help our students improve each day, which presupposes that they are not perfect now. Will mistakes be made as we all work to produce valuable citizens? Of course. We will regret them. We will make adjustments. But we will not turn our backs on our young people, even when they disappoint.
The Journalism Education Association has consistently supported student free expression rights over its 85 years, but the association also advocates an adviser code of ethics, as well as distributing positions on photo manipulation, use of copyrighted materials, and Internet expression to our membership. In other words, the association advocates for responsible journalism in a broad array of areas. JEA stands ready to provide support and expertise to anyone involved in disputes over student expression. I sincerely hope you will not hesitate to contact John Bowen, JEA’s student press rights commission chair, Linda Puntney, our executive director, or me if we can be of any assistance.
I would like to think that, ultimately, we agree on the importance of student expression as part of the high school experience.
I ask that Stevenson High School return to its former status as a school where students come first, and where free, open, and responsible discussion of even the most sensitive issues is encouraged.
Coverage of the situation:
• Stevenson High officials halt publication of Statesman
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-stevenson-school-paper-20-nov20,0,1175320.story
• Students say district forced them to publish
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/chi-high-school-newspaper-25-nov
• Stevenson High orders students to publish
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/comments/?id=339605#storycomments
• Presses roll at Stevenson, without offending stories
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/11/presses-roll-at-stevenson-high—-without-offending-stories.html
• Student newspaper is a lot leaner, less controversial
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-stevenson-censored-26nov26,0,5752444.story?obref=obnetwork
• Controversial Stevenson student newspaper released
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=339713
• Muzzling students
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-1126edit2nov26,0,6053750.story
• Stevenson High to students: publish or perish
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/dennis-byrne-barbershop/2009/11/stevenson-high-to-j-students-publish-or-perish.html
• SPJ blog by David Cuillier
http://blogs.spjnetwork.org/foi/
• Il high school students face censorship
http://blogs.spjnetwork.org/campus/
Open forums for student expression? Let us recognize you
If you and your students attended the JEA/NSPA convention this past week in DC, you are aware of the courageous fight some teachers and advisers wage against censorship. In some cases they kept their student media operating as designated forums for student expression or as practicing forums for student expression.
Others still continue to fight the good fight. We would like to grow the recognition of such programs.
To achieve this, JEA, NSPA, CSPA and Quill & Scroll sponsor the First Amendment Press Freedom Award, and deadline for applying is Dec. 1. To find out more about the award and download an application go here.
If your student media are open forums by policy or practice, please apply. We would love to recognize more of you.
And, if you are forums for student expression, please let us know so we can list your student media as such on the Center for Scholastic Journalism’s Web site. Recognition forms can be downloaded there or from this blog.
Read MoreDC: Truly inspiring
After the past couple of months of news on this blog, it would be easy to be despondent.
Student work being censored for laughable reasons. Advisers having their authority usurped. Creativity being stifled.
As it always does, the JEA/NSPA national convention, has energized me. Sitting in the SPRC panel on Saturday, we had the good fortune to meet with a courageous group of students who are undergoing censorship, but who are seeking out the information and ammunition to fight these attempts to deprive them of their rights.
They came armed with information and questions, with emotion and with resolve. I’m hopeful the students who showed up and sought knowledge from those of us assembled were happy with what was provided. I also hope they continue to stay in touch with the SPRC and let us help them in their struggles.
Seeing Henry Rome and Seth Zweifler, from Conestoga, Pa., win award after award for their work administrators sought to quash was similarly energizing. As was hearing Al Leonard, a principal who gets it, speak to those assembled at the panel and hopefully provide the assembled students with hope that there are some principals who seek to nurture the First Amendment rather than strangle it.
It’s not easy to stand up to an administrator as a teacher. It’s tough to imagine what it’s like as a teenage journalist. Administrators are pretty well counting on the fact that students will not be aware of their rights and will cede to their authority.
But it fills me with hope for the cause this blog is here to promote – scholastic press rights – that these brave students are so willing and passionate to stand up and fight for what is right.
First Amendment Award application available
We know there are a significant number of open forum student media out there, and we’d like to see you apply for JEA’s First Amendment Press Freedom Award (FAPFA).
Being an open forum for student expression, besides having exceptional educational validity and offering excellent learning opportunities for students, also can help protect a school system in cases of liability.
If you think your student media are forums, by policy or practice, then go here and download the application form for FAPFA. Application for the honor comes in two parts: the initial application of 25 questions for a media adviser and an administrator. Those meeting the criteria for the award will then receive a second application to be filled out by the principal, all student media editors and advisers. Deadline for applying is Dec. 1, 2009. Those meeting the final criteria will be recognized at the JEA/NSPA convention in Portland.
Good luck!
Read MoreNeeded: Student media which are public forums
The Journalism Education Association and The Center for Scholastic Journalism are looking for more schools who are public forums for student expression.
Why? Because we have had several requests for numbers – and for schools in particular areas.
So, if your school’s student media are public forums for student expression, let us know by going here and completing the form.
For student media to be designated as a public/student forum, the school must either:
• Have a school board- or administrator-enacted policy stating students make final content decisions of protected speech*, or
• Have a student media-generated policy declaring students make all final content decisions and also indicating/verifying that practice has been in effect at least two years, and there is no district or building policy that directly contradicts that practice. During that time, no adult, including the adviser, other faculty members, administrators or publication boards have dictated or changed content.
In both situations, the advisers may, as part of the coaching process, offer advice and comment, but not make final content decisions.
* The policy can still limit unprotected speech such as libel, obscenity and substantially disruptive material, but it must give other content control to the students.
Help us show others that public forums in student media are not an endangered species.
John Bowen, MJE
Read More