My View
Why We Must Support Voice in Student Publications
BY SCOTT R. KIZNER/School Administrator, January 2022

ONE OF MY STRONGEST BELIEFS as superintendent was to ensure our students were respected and listened to, that their ideas, opinions and interests were valued just as much as any other stakeholder in the school community.

One way of accomplishing this was to support our student journalism programs and take steps to remove barriers that could potentially restrict student free speech. Recently, a group of faculty advisers and student editors from the district’s five high schools approached me with their concerns about our school board policy on school-sponsored publications. In particular, they pointed to the right of the building principal under existing policy to restrict the publication of a story without offering a clear understanding of why this action was taken.

I understood their concern and recognized that the policy had been in place for many years. I was aware that the principals and school board might have been hesitant to support any change to a policy that might grant students greater journalistic autonomy and voice.

Joint Understanding

My approach to addressing their concerns was to establish a collaborative advisory group consisting of those most familiar with the policy issues and those most impacted if the policy were to grant greater freedom to student publications. The advisory group consisted of the school district’s executive director of policy, legal services and Title IX, the five high school principals, the high school chief academic officer, a faculty newspaper adviser and student editors representing each of the five high schools. The advisory group established two goals: revise School Board Policy 2411 and develop a student press editorial framework that each high school can customize.

Why, you may wonder, in the midst of a public health crisis did we put all this effort and time into this issue when perhaps more pressing matters lingered?

If there is ever a time when student voice is critically important and student journalism is needed, that time is right now. The local, state and national discussion about policies that impact students is at an intensity level I never before have observed throughout my 22 years as a superintendent.

School board meetings have turned into places of great debate, protest and, at times, civil unrest. Sidelined from these discussions are the students who are directly affected by adult-driven policy actions. Most of the public learns about the outcomes of these meetings from traditional media sources or through social media platforms. It is fair to say that newspaper and broadcast media highlight the most controversial aspects of the meetings without providing much depth on the central subject. Social media serve as a warehouse of opinions and emotions of the participants, but factual detail is often scarce.

Performance Expectations

Supporting student publications and protecting student free speech is something school leaders should take seriously. As the leader of a school district, I supported student journalism and free speech through high levels of trust in the faculty advisers and principals. A non-negotiable was my unwavering expectation that ethical guidelines would be followed in producing student publications and the curriculum would meet national journalistic standards.

Student journalists are students first, and it is the responsibility of the educators to mentor and teach these students how to appropriately take on these important responsibilities. Will they make mistakes? Of course. It’s part of learning. Meanwhile, the collaborative advisory committee will end its work soon, and I will look forward to reading the recommendations.

SCOTT KIZNER retired last August as superintendent of the Stafford County Public Schools in Stafford, Va. He was named the 2021 Administrator of the Year by the Journalism Education Association.