School Board Statement on Statesman

School Board Statement on Statesman

Adlai E. Stevenson High School District 125 Board of Education President Bruce Lubin today issued the following statement on behalf of the Board of Education. The statement also was read aloud during tonight’s Board of Education meeting.

     "Over the past 30 days, Stevenson has again experienced controversy related to the school newspaper, the Statesman.  The Board of Education would like to take this opportunity to reiterate the District’s position regarding the character of the newspaper as an integral part of Stevenson High School’s curriculum, and the legal principles and Board policy that guide its publication.
    "Some have suggested that recent events show that the school practices censorship, and ignores the First Amendment rights of the students who produce the newspaper, to ensure that the Statesman does not publish articles that either criticize the school or the administration, or are controversial in nature.
    "However, the record of topics reported and editorialized upon in the paper in recent years clearly refutes this charge.  In fact, in this past year alone, the Statesman has featured articles criticizing and questioning the school’s grading and discipline practices, our new student management system, and the strategies we use to reduce student theft.  Our student journalists also have written a number of articles addressing controversial topics, including premarital teenage sex and the relatively new phenomenon of "sexting."  The Statesman has reported on provocative and sensitive subjects in the past, and undoubtedly will continue to do so in the future.
    "The issues presented by the most recent controversies are not, fundamentally, ones of "censorship", but of helping our students to learn appropriate curricular and journalistic standards.  The student journalists who write and edit articles and who sell advertising for each issue of the Statesman do so for academic credit as the work product of the high school’s year-long course in Newspaper Production (English 951), with instruction and guidance from their teachers. The District and its taxpayers provide most of the funding which supports the publication of the paper.
    "As such, the Statesman is not a "public forum", but rather, an educational and curriculum endeavor.  Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, school administrators may step in to impose restrictions on a newspaper of this type, provided that their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.
    "We, too, value and respect the First Amendment and hope to instill and encourage in our student journalists a passion for reporting and writing.  However, we part company with those who insist school district leaders should allow school-sponsored student newspapers to be published free of and unrestricted by administrative review.
    "One journalistic approach that exemplifies the need for schools to appropriately exercise oversight is the use of disguised or anonymous sources.  This is one of the areas that caused the District concern when reviewing the November issue of the Statesman. Even within the greater journalistic community, there is disagreement and question about circumstances that may justify using or quoting anonymous sources.  Our educators believe, and we agree, that there are only limited instances in which the use of anonymous sources is appropriate in the school setting.  Stevenson’s own experience within the past year has taught us that promises of disguised identity or anonymity made by student reporters do not prevent other students from deducing the identity of sources who disclosed private, personal and confidential information to Statesman staff members on the assumption and promise that their names would not become known to the larger school community.
     "Another area, which a school may lawfully regulate, is the publication in a school-sponsored student newspaper of confidential, private medical information about identified students.  During pre-publication review of the December issue of the Statesman, which is scheduled for release tomorrow, administrators identified concerns with an article that dealt with the use and potential side effects of prescription drugs, citing and focusing on potential side effects of birth control pills, in particular.  The Board of Education and the administration want our students to explore the issues of the day, and we agree that this article treats a newsworthy topic. However, parts of the article in question disclosed highly personal medical information about a named Stevenson student.  We do not believe that it is appropriate for a school district to make public this type of confidential personal information about an identified student, by disclosing it in a school-sponsored newspaper or in any other format.  The school is committed to continuing to work with our student journalists on the article for possible publication in the future so long as it does not compromise student privacy.
    "Some have also suggested that school-sponsored student newspapers should have minimal supervision by teachers and advisers, and that student journalists should have maximum freedom, perhaps reasoning that students will learn from their occasional mistakes and the fallout from their stories.  We simply do not agree.  To educate our students, we provide administrators and faculty, including, in this case, two dedicated journalism teachers who have worked tirelessly to support students in developing and practicing good journalistic skills. When a student in a U.S. history class submits an essay and the teacher returns the paper with suggestions for improvement before a final draft is submitted, that is not censorship, it is good teaching. Similarly, when a journalism teacher asks a student to revise an article to achieve more accuracy or balance, or to protect the confidentiality of student sources in sensitive cases, that is not censorship, it is also good teaching.
    "However, we realize that a paper submitted in a history class differs from a student’s article for the school newspaper in that wider consequences may ensue if a student journalist, against educators’ recommendations, publishes an article which discloses highly personal information about identified or identifiable other students. Those other students may be hurt.
    "The District’s Board policy describes how in an exemplary learning community, qualities of conduct, character and achievement are the result of genuine concern for the individual student, and we firmly believe that Stevenson High School has a responsibility to safeguard the privacy and social and emotional well being of all of our students. 
    "The current questions surrounding the Statesman have had at least one positive result.  While Stevenson has had an informal practice of pre-publication prior review for the Statesman for years, recent events have enabled the administration, faculty, and student journalists to have conversations that have provided more focus and are leading to the development of more specific procedures and practices for providing feedback and suggestions to our journalism students. Within the next month, our administration, journalism teachers, and students will be working collaboratively to draft clear procedures and guidelines to improve communication and provide our students with clear expectations for their work in the journalism program.
    "We hope and believe the educational opportunities at Stevenson High School and the work of its administrators, teachers, students, and parents will help to create the next generation of accomplished practitioners in the field of journalism – and in the many other disciplines needed to bring about forward progress in our rapidly changing society and world."