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Wentzville BOE photos

These photos were all taken by a student of mine, Kelci Davis, who attended the board meeting. http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/album.php?aid=194418&id=594927153&ref=nf

Media coverage of Wentzville board meeting

Here are some links to coverage by KSDK, KMOV and the Post-Dispatch. Pretty solid coverage, from the free speech point of view, particularly KSDK http://www.kmov.com/video/featured-videos/Students-support-teacher-in-censorship-of-article-88521402.html http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/education/story/92A93A77207257DD862576EB0012F829?OpenDocument I’ll upload photos to my facebook account and link later today. http://www.kmov.com/video/featured-videos/Students-support-teacher-in-censorship-of-article-88521402.html

Wentzville BOE meeting update

Bedecked in their green Team McCandless shirts, a group of 50 or students, parents and family members gathered at the monthly meeting of the Wentzville Board of Education, hoping to have their voices heard over the censorship of the newspaper and yearbook at Timberland High School. Those green shirts failed to bring any luck to…

Caution: revisionism at work

Like the Chrysler ad depicting three cars with the narrator saying George Washington’s first car had a hemi engine, historical revision spreads into the new decade. We tend to associate historical revisionism with changes made in Soviet history following WW2 and the fall of the soviet bloc when leaders changed historical and political concepts to…

Lighting the way: leadership for the future

The New York Times reported on a crisis mapping operation involving what it called everyone-as-informant March 12. The Times article reported the operation suggested a new paradigm for humanitarian work. This project, shaped to fit the needs of scholastic journalism, suggests a viable paradigm for scholastic new media to lead, not only through content but also…

Team McCandless

Wentzville Board Meeting So over the past six months or so, the students and teacher at Timberland High School in Wentzville, Mo. have undergone some terrible tribulations at the hands of their administrators. Stories pulled in multiple issues, oversight of the yearbook, panel photos pulled from said yearbook in March, when there is little that…

Mirror, mirror on the wall: leadership in the digital age

Expanding scholastic journalism into the digital environment is like delving into the world of fantasy, complete with magic mirrors that enlighten and show implications for the future and connections to the past. Our dilemma is how to decide what traditional journalism standards are worthy of transfer to the magical world of digital media and, in…

Where have the leaders gone?

Judging newspaper entries this spring, I noticed a distinct lack of unsigned staff editorials. In some cases this seemed to be mirrored by a lack of depth or extended feature reporting. If there were editorials, a significant number were not calls to action or statements of leadership on events or issues. In other words, the…

To question…

To question Part of the great thing about being an American citizen is that we get to ask questions without fear of retribution, or do we? I have often wondered why some administrators get so upset with student questions in newspapers or teacher questions in faculty meetings or parents questions at school board meetings. As…

Just the facts, ma’am

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…

Just this once

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…

Growing from SJ Week

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…