Here’s hoping your Scholastic Journalism Week has been a good one.

Aiming at providing more support for scholastic media, the Scholastic Press Rights Commission started some good things for this week that will continue throughout the year:

• Our Student Partners program, 45words, is accessible through the menu bar above.  With this program we hope to involve more students in the commission’s outreach and early alert of First Amendment issues. Student work and communication can also be accessed through their Facebook page and Twitter site. The commission created Student Partners as a way to help students connect with their peers to support, protect and spread awareness about the First Amendment.

• Our “panic button”  to reach contacts when you, your students or administrators need assistance using an interactive map. The “panic button” is also available from the menu bar above.

• Our Lifelines legal and ethical terminology exists in case you need to know what a term means quickly. We will continue to update the terms throughout the year. The list is available from the menu bar above.

• A renewed commitment to serve JEA members and their school communities through available assistance, discussions of important news and information and quickly disseminating breaking news.

Happy Scholastic Journalism Week, and wishing that every week brings success.

Need legal help or just simple advice?

The Scholastic Press Rights Commission’s “panic button,” an interactive map of JEA officials and those willing to answer questions is now available for your use. You can access the map by clicking on the link in the menu bar above or through the link earlier in this paragraph.

The map is part of JEA’s Adviser Assistance Program. Press rights commission members designed it as a first-level of support for students, advisers and administrators having questions about all areas of scholastic journalism but mainly issues surrounding scholastic press freedoms and responsibilities.

We hope it will add to a positive Scholastic Journalism Week experience. Many thanks to Kent State University journalism GA Stacy Stevenson for implementing the map.

I’m ashamed to admit this is the first Scholastic Journalism Week I’ve ever participated in during my five years of teaching, but what an experience it has been so far … and one I will be repeating annually until I retire.

I don’t say that because I’ve had some sort of life-altering experience or even one big thing that has changed the way I look at my job or the First Amendment or scholastic journalism.

Instead, it’s been a bit of a slow steady trickle of little things. Monday I asked my students to just fill out a little sheet about why they love newspaper or yearbook. And while I did learn who was just as sarcastic as I am, I also learned some really nice things about why students love scholastic journalism.

Tuesday was a work night for my newspaper staff. I had students who were there from 2:20 until 9 p.m. on a day when the paper wasn’t going to bed the next day. I spoke to an AP history class about the importance of journalism and journalists being free of bias and the general state of the media. A nice little discussion that popped up out of the blue.

Wednesday was a nice day of little triumphs as well. The Student Partners – follow them on Facebook or at twitter.com/45words – are starting to really get some stuff done. My newspaper staff made the decision to jump a 2,000 word profile on a wrestling champion from our newspaper to our website, an interesting decision in our new little world of scholastic journalism. The yearbook and newspaper kids started Facebook fan and friend drives to increase the reach of their groups. I personally was able to contribute eight new people to our drive in about the span of three minutes. Students on each staff sent thank you notes to the people they interact with most in the course of your duties – and I got great feedback from those people through e-mails. And finally, a photojournalism student told me I was her favorite teacher … in front of another one of her teachers. Nice!

And that was just me. Karen Barrett, up in Wheeling, Ill., told us Wednesday of the great things her students did to help keep one of her introductory classes. Sarah Nichols tweeted some photos of her staff participating in Chad Rummel’s Bring It Day that he shared on the listserv – I’m using it too, my editors love it! – and Aaron Manfull posted some interesting numbers on jeadigitalmedia.org about web traffic from scholastic news websites from around the country. I’m still trying to figure out what those numbers mean to my newspaper staff, but they are a nice instrument to have and enable us to kind of compare what we are doing on the web. Carrie Faust put the smack down on some ignorant folks out in Ventura, Calif. in the comments section of a story about some parents who were attacking the student journalists who conducted a survey about sex in their high school.

I’m positive I’ve missed some great things that you all, my colleagues, have experienced this week. Share what you’ve been for SJW in the comments section of this post. They don’t have to be huge deals, it’s those little victories that keep us going.

Since it’s Scholastic Journalism Week, let’s do some celebrating.

In the past, we have sought student media which are not forums for student expression.

Let’s try a positive statement: We want recognize student media that are forums for student expression, either by policy or practice.

Forums for student expression are thus defined:

• Forums by policy: An official school policy exists that designates student editors as the ultimate authority regarding content. School officials actually practice this policy by exercising a “hands-off” role and empowering student editors to lead. Advisers teach and offer students advice, but they neither control nor make final decisions regarding content.

• Forums by practice: A school policy may or may not exist regarding student media, but administrators have a “hands-off” approach and have empowered students to control content decisions. Advisers teach and offer students advice, but they neither control nor make final decisions regarding content.

To make it easy to compile the needed information, let us know your status as a forum for student expression by leaving a comment below or leaving a note on the commission’s Facebook page.

Join us in celebrating a key part of Scholastic Journalism Week: acknowledging those who practice the most important 45 words of our democracy.

Because it is Scholastic Journalism Week, I wanted to share a question raised at a conference sponsored by the McCormick Foundation and the Illinois Press Association earlier this month.

The question: Should the groups involved endorse public forum status as a prerequisite for any kind of protocol process that might be established or should any protocol designed allow schools to decide what works best.

What do you think?

How important is being designated or practicing forums for student expression to student media and their ability to fulfill their functions?

Your input – and maybe anecdotes – are important, especially this week to show how the forum concept has or has not made a difference in your school’s journalism education.

Orwellian.

Administrators at Lower Merion School District have activated Webcams installed on school-owned laptops, in effect spying on students, although they say their efforts only attempted to find lost and missing computers.

Spying is what a class-action lawsuit filed filed against the school alleges. The suit states this not only occurred, but in at least one instance, the school used a Webcam photo as evidence when it repremanded a student for improper behavior.

Draconian?

Quite likely, since the lawsuit indicated the intrusion took place in the student’s home.

Stories on the issue and the lawsuit can be found from the Associated Press, in philly.com, from The New York Times, on TV at NBC Connecticut and a download of the lawsuit here.

Comments from the Student Press Law Center can be found here.

In the SPLC blog, Mike Hiestand states – if true – the lawsuit “serves as yet another wake-up call to judges that they have turned a blind eye to the conduct of school officials for way too long. Judges have a duty to say what the law is and ensure that everyone — including citizens who also happen to be students — can seek its protection.”

Again, we must agree.

Such administrative conduct undermines the efforts of  journalism educators who are trying to build common, constructive dialogue with administrators, based on proper protocol, common educational mission and respect.

Orwellian, yes

Draconian, yes.

Stupid, most certainly.

Respect for those who would treat students this way, for whatever reason?

Harder than ever to make happen.

Looking for something constructive to do that concerns education, scholastic journalism and maybe even the future of democracy?

Join a team that opposes censorship.

Team McCandless.

Students and parents who want to stop censorship of student media started team McCandless because adviser Cathy McCandless has said she will not advise student media next year given the prior review and censorship generated over several years.

The site urges everyone to “join us if you want to show your support. Censorship teaches nothing.”

We agree, and urge everyone who cares about scholastic journalism, about opposing censorship, to join.

Lori Carballo, who set up the Facebook page, writes there, “We cannot let our opinions be heard only on Facebook. Take the time to let your voices be heard by the Wentzville School District. Contact the school board, the building administrators, the superintendents and tell them what’s on your mind.”

It might just be the first step to ignite constructive change in a series of bad administrative decisions.

Censorship unleased its tentacles into northern Indiana recently, when assistant principals confiscated issues already reviewed and approved by the principal.

The article, an opinion piece about the resignation of the head football coach, wished “only the best for the coach” but also said the change was needed.

The local paper reported the assistant superintendent as saying the newspapers were removed after students and administrators were called and texted by those upset with the paper’s portrayal of the football team and the coach. Administrators said the piece created a disruption of the school process, even though the editor pointed out the issue was only on the newsstands for about 20 minutes.

The school carries out prior review and the principal had approved the article.

At a board of education meeting Feb. 15, sources said administrators defended their decision by arguing the school paper is no place for negativity and students can become good journalists while covering the plentiful good things in the school.

Coverage of the board meeting reports the students asked the board to make the issue available “no later than Tuesday, Feb. 16. The board did not respond to this request and that of the editor’s father.

The local paper quoted an assistant principal, “I take the rights of our country very seriously. But it’s important for students and staff to show respect for each other, and that we maintain a safe and balanced learning environment.”

By Jimmy Hibsch, Rolling Meadows High School

For the past year the Stevenson High School Statesman staff has not only been reporting the news, but it has also been making it.

Last January, when former Features Editor Eunice Ro published an article about “hooking up,” administrators responded with harsh criticism. The article discussed the demise of the teenage ‘cookie-cutter’ relationships into casual, and often drunken, affairs. Disregarding an expose about the same topic in the New York Times that deemed hooking up a trend, district administrators claimed the issue was of “no news value” and insisted the missing 3,400 issues that included the article disappeared.

Over the next 11 months, the Stateman’s award-winning and nationally-known adviser Barbara Thill resigned and administration-student relationships withered.

“The administration was offered a chance to look over the package and while one of them did and said it looked good, the other one declined, wanting to wait to see it when the rest of the school did. They told us they trusted us,” former Editor-in-Chief Pam Selman said. “However, when the community had a strong response – both negative and positive – to the package, the administration decided to implement prior review of The Statesman and we have been under prior review since then.”

While District 125 Board of Education President Bruce Lubin said the school “has had an informal practice of pre-publication prior review for the Statesman for years” in his Dec. 19 statement, he also stressed the school was allowed to “impose restrictions” under the Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier decision.

Since the Statesman is not a public forum, the school claims it is an “educational and curriculum endeavor.” However, student journalists such as Selman say limiting the Statesman’s content does just the opposite.

“The practice of prior review does nothing but hinder education and make students feel as if they are incapable of making their own decisions,” Selman said. “It results in a weaker publication and a long list of impacts on education.”

This November, the dispute was furthered when administration censored the Statesman’s Nov. 20 issue, objecting to stories about Code of Conduct breaches by honors students, teenage pregnancies and the rise of shoplifting. Selman said when her staff decided to leave the front page blank in protest, administrators instead forced them to feature alternate stories they had approved.

Had students not consented, they would have failed their journalism class.

“They censored the entire issue, but then turned around the next day and told us we had an hour to put together a paper in the way they wanted us to. We received a packet delineating the exact format of the paper as requested by the administration,” Selman said. “They forced us to put a features story on the front page, and the pregnancy and honors student story were not printed.”

Essentially, the students felt the issue did not reflect their work in the least.

“We asked that an editors’ note be published explaining why the paper was not up to our standards, which was turned down. We also requested that our bylines be removed from the paper, not wanting our names attached to something we felt was not ours,” Selman said. “Again, they refused.”

A school spokesperson said the honors student story was ruled as unprintable because it included anonymous sources who admitted to illegal activity. However, that was not the case the following month when the staff attempted to publish an article about birth control. This time, administrators said that the article revealed personal medical information about a student.

“The school did not want to put medical information about a student into the public. They would not allow us to make her anonymous, so we ended up running a blank page,” Selman said. “When the administration censored the December issue, it was clear that they intended to continue censoring without reason.”

This year (2009-10), the school divided the Statesman production class into two separate sections, despite students pleas the change would drastically impact their production. With the end of the first semester, however, the school had moved the students’ schedules around again to allow for only one class – again forcing the staff to readjust. Seeing these and the school’s prior actions equal to forcing her to practice bad journalism, Selman and several other Statesman staff members quit the newspaper by withdrawing from the class associated with its production.

“Mainly, we refuse to compromise our ethics and standards that we hold so closely,” Selman said. “It is unfair of a school, or anyone for that matter, to ask a student or person to give up what they believe in.”

Currently, only four students remain in the class. The small staff originally intended to publish their Jan. 28 issue on schedule, however, it has been delayed as a result of their lack of numbers. The first issue published Feb. 12.

As for the remainder of the Statesman’s former staff, Selman said the future is uncertain.

“We are currently considering all of our options, but we have gotten a number of offers from companies willing to sponsor Web sites and publications for us completely independent of the school. We will be pursuing one of those options,” Selman said.

Jimmy Hibsch is the Editor-in-Chief of The Pacer at Rolling Meadows High School (IL)