Twenty-nine days and counting.

Some will look toward the culmination of that period positively. Others do so with dread.

April 1. April Fools.

JEA listservians carried out a lively discussion today on the merits and demerits of publishing an April Fools edition. SPLC executive director Frank LoMonte even said to keep his center’s phone number and e-mail address handy if students published such an issue.

Tough decision.

But, I think there are two core reasons for not publishing an April Fools issue:

• The information is known to be false. We spend the rest of the school year developing our credibility over controversy and defending students’ rights and obligation to print the truth. Then in one day we throw caution to the wind and go with information that is not only untrue but even could be taken to be misleading.
• We give others the right to know what is coming. Prior review. Prior approval. We do this, in some cases, with the best of intentions, so sources will not be caught unaware, and to make sure information is not too far out of line. We might even mix the untrue with the true, hoping our audiences can tell the difference. This scares me. We, including those of us carrying out JEA’s official position, argue and rant daily about the educational dangers of prior review. So in this case we want to say, here, check it out ahead of time? What will we say to those, now used to prior review, when they ask for it on something of substance?

Twenty-nine days.

A long period of time to think about the plusses and minuses.

No joke.

In the 1970s, the American Library Association released a film for use in schools called The Speaker. The film dealt with multi-level decision making concerning free speech.

One line sticks in my mind: Just this once.

As in “what’s wrong if just this once we stop someone from speaking.”

Over the years, this translated into the realm of prior review: so what if just this once the principal prior reviews student media. Who is harmed? What is lost? How will it hurt? Who will care?

And, after all this time, journalism advisers and teachers do not have an common answer for the issues surrounding prior review.

For some, prior review gets teachers off the hook. It is a safety cushion where someone else takes the responsibility for decisions made.

For some, tolerating it or embracing it means a job. In this economy one almost cannot blame them.

For some, prior review means following commercial media when the publisher sometimes can say yay or nay to content.

For these and other reasons the scholastic journalism community has, for far too long, been unwilling to really confront this elephant in the room of journalistic learning.

Now, though, we are seeing more and more fruits of allowing just this once as it applies to prior review:

• Solid programs with solid advisers are falling to the spread of prior review. The latest is in Minnesota.
• Prior restraint, not a safer school or real educational growth, is the product of prior review.
• Administrators are starting to ask for proof that schools exist without prior review. Why?  Because they just don’t believe schools exist with review since that is what administrative consulting groups and school lawyers tell them. The latest instance of this comes from Colorado.
• Several administrative consulting groups across the nation, even though they don’t say they do, endorse in open or subtle ways administrative control of student media. Prior review. For self-protection. Because it is the safe thing to do.

Because the spread of prior review by those outside the staffs of student media is so extensive, so pervasive, we as journalism educators must do more than condemn this issue. We must raise challenges that ask:

• What are workable alternatives to prior review? And then create and distribute them.
• How do we show the practice has no educational value and in fact harms student educational growth? And model our beliefs.
• How do we show that truthful, accurate and complete reporting by student media cannot take place in an atmosphere of prior review? And showcase the solid programs where such reporting thrives.
• Does the risk of just this once dropping prior review outweigh administrative fears of students running amuck? And publicize the excellence of students, who without prior review consistently show their learning works.

Our goals should thus include:

• Clear demonstration, through the use of nationwide examples, that free and responsible student media means student decision making without prior review. Not responsible to mother school but to the idea of truth and serving the school’s various publics.
• Clear documentation that schools do prosper without prior review and that their numbers are substantial. We need to let each other know when our programs are public forums by policy or practice, and we need to do so proudly so those numbers make on impact on those who claim otherwise.
• Clear modeling to administrators that their best way to monitor student media is to hire qualified and caring advisers and teachers who empower students to grow by practicing what they are taught.

It is time to actively implement our beliefs, to remind those who support prior review they are wrong.

Just this once – before it is too late.

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.

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)