Forum schools
C. E. Jordan High School
Durham, NC
• Public school
• Falcon's Cry (newspaper)
• Talon (yearbook)
• The Mirror (literary magazine)
• Advisers: Starlyn Combs (newspaper) starlyn.combs@dpsnc.net
Jamie Cook (yearbook) ewalsh@washoe.k12.nv.us
• Contact info: 919-560-3912 EXT 12632
• Willing to talk with others about forum status
• The Falcon's Cry is a forum by policy and practice.
• The Talon is a forum by policy and practice.
The board policy is available as a download here.
• Length of time as forums for the The Falcon's Cry and Talon is at least eight years.
Our school does not have a separate media policy; the publications staff brainstorms, reports and writes all content; we do not submit our paper to anyone for approval, nor do we allow sources to review stories; copy is solely edited by students and guided by the adviser. Our paper contains the following statement in each issue: Falcon's Cry is published monthly buy Journalism students at Jordan High School. Falcon's Cry is a public forum that welcomes contributions from any member of the Jordan community. The signed opinions on the opinion pages and the advertisements do not necessarily reflect the opinions or sentiments of the Falcon's Cry staff, nor the Jordan administration, faculty or student body. Unsigned editorals are the opinion of the editorial board. The yearbook staff determines theme, coverage and design, and it does not submit content for approval. The yearbook does not have a written policy that establishes it as a public forum beyond the board policy.
Falcon's Cry
The Talon
• Other points of significance:
From Falcon's Cry adviser Starlyn Combs: "While I did not have a hand in establishing the policy, the newspaper adviser before me, who is still at our school, definitely had a situation that put it to the test in 1994. The students wrote an article about some athletes who had been suspended for drinking at a school function. The parents did not want the story to run, so they appealed to the principal (not our current principal) who tried to censor the article. The staff initially published the article with the student names blacked out, then followed the process for appeal/complaint outlined in the article, a process that took the school year, essentially. The staff also sought the advice of the Student Press Law Center. In the end, the Board of Education decided that it had to support its own policy, and the students ran the article in its complete form in the last issue of the paper. I am not certain if that adviser actually had a hand in establishing the policy, but its language reflects the Tinker decision. Since that time, we have enjoyed freedom that seems less and less protected as I read stories from the SPLC and on the JEA listserv."