The students do make all of the final decisions regarding the newspaper. They certainly ask my advice, but they are welcome to disregard it.

The students just had a meeting with the Principal and Dean last month because they were writing a story about teachers who lock tardy students out of class for the whole period. Following that meeting, here is part of an email the Editor in Chief wrote to another journalism adviser that she met at a conference:

“There have been occurrences of some teachers locking their students out of the classroom and leaving them out unsupervised for the entire period. The Opinion Editor wanted to investigate this some more to write an article about it (this has also happened to her). She tried talking to the Vice Principal with little success. However, when the Principal caught wind of this she wanted to have a meeting. The Opinion Editor Martha, our adviser and I went to talk to the principal. Basically she told us that she believes we only want to write the article to stir up problems. She said she was unaware that this was going on and that if we print the article she will not be as effective to correct the problem. We explained to her that as a student run forum she cannot stop us from running an article and all the teachers should have been well aware that what they were doing was wrong and illegal. We let her know that the point of the article was to bring attention to the students that if this does happen to them they need to go to the office and report it because the teacher does not have the right to lock them out and if there are to be consequences the teacher needs to follow the established guidelines . Another one of her issues with the article was that the teachers that were locking students out (if we printed their names) would hurt their reputation and she said it was illegal. We then brought to her attention that as long as what we were printing was true the person making the statement cannot be held liable. Needless to say she was very upset. We do want to run the article but are still in the process of talking it over.”

Please note that the EIC told the principal that the paper is a student forum. Here was my response when she forwarded me her email:

“Hello,

I'm just addressing this to you because, as the Editor in Chief, this will ultimately be your decision. You will make the final decision about IF you will run the story and, if you decide to run it, HOW to run the story.

When trying to decide IF you should run it, keep in mind a valid concern voiced by Konnie, Mr. Alfi, Mr. Cruz, and Mrs. Zietlow that this would NOT be a popular story. There WILL be students and staff who will be mad. As you heard yesterday, there WILL be people who think you are writing this just to get attention for the newspaper. On the other side of it, you have the reasons that you voiced yesterday in the meeting and that Konnie mentioned in her email.

I can see both sides of the issue and I've written similar articles while I was in high school and I can tell you that it's not easy to be on the receiving end of that kind of heat. When you write an article that you feel is important, it's hard to not get the praise that you might have imagined. It's hard to deal with how students or staff might change towards you.

Even though those things were hard, what made it easy for me was having Mrs. Cummings, my newspaper adviser who supported our decisions regardless of what we decided. I try to be like my adviser in many ways and I hope you know that I will support you not matter what you decide. I will not be mad or disappointed if you run the story. I will not be mad or disappointed if you DON'T run the story. I am already proud of how mature you were at the meeting yesterday. You listened to the concerns of Mr. Cruz and Mrs. Zietlow and tried to come up with a compromise.

If you do decide to run the story, Konnie makes an excellent point that this should get coverage as a news story before it could get written as an editorial or an opinion piece. That, then, is the first thing you have to ask yourself: Are you (or whichever writer is mature enough to handle this) willing to go out and get the full news coverage? That would mean interviewing Mr. Canales, Mr. Gordon, other students involved, and administration. Now, they may choose to not be interviewed, but to equally voice all concerns, they need to be asked to share their points of view. The reporter should confirm all appointment requests (including any refusals to be interviewed) by sending a confirmation email from his/her gahrforum email account after speaking with the person, take the digital voice recorder, and bring along another neutral writer as a backup note-taker. Approaching staff on this issue is a VERY tough spot to be in and would require extreme sensitivity in dealing with all involved. I also think, in light of concerns voiced by Mrs. Zietlow, that the sources should all be named and on the record. I wouldn't want the story to lack any credibility because students were unnamed. Those are my suggestions, though, and not requirements.”

Despite the administration’s strong opposition to the story, the students decided to run the story.