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About a week and a half before this fall’s first issue of The Pirate Press was published, Boonville High School journalism teacher Stephanie Carey sent an e-mail expressing concerns about oversight of the paper.
“I’d like to send the front page and separations by Friday just as a test to make sure I’m doing things the right way,” Carey wrote in a Sept. 23 e-mail to Erayna Martinez and Deborah Marshall of the Boonville Daily News. “We had a little censorship issue already and have been trying to decide how to deal with that as well.”
The e-mail is one of dozens released as part of a Missouri Sunshine Law request from the BDN, which facilitates the printing of the student paper.
Among other findings:
- No administrative protocol for editing of the student paper was provided under the Sunshine Law request. Superintendent Mark Ficken has said that such a protocol has existed for three or four years. He said that distribution of the student paper was stopped because the protocol requires the principal to edit the paper before it is sent to be printed.
- Journalism curriculum identifies numerous teacher responsibilities but none for the principal or superintendent. Ficken was well within his legal rights when he stopped distribution of some copies of the paper, as outlined in the U.S. Supreme Court case Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. None of the documents provided outline editing or distribution procedures specific to the Boonville R-1 School District.
- Editing marks and comments made to page proofs of the Oct. 2 edition were not reflected in the final version of the paper. Additionally, there is no information on the documents identifying who performed the editing. Some of the concerns identified in the comments are similar to concerns Ficken identified in an Oct. 2 interview with the BDN.
About a week and a half before this fall’s first issue of The Pirate Press was published, Boonville High School journalism teacher Stephanie Carey sent an e-mail expressing concerns about oversight of the paper.
“I’d like to send the front page and separations by Friday just as a test to make sure I’m doing things the right way,” Carey wrote in a Sept. 23 e-mail to Erayna Martinez and Deborah Marshall of the Boonville Daily News. “We had a little censorship issue already and have been trying to decide how to deal with that as well.”
The e-mail is one of dozens released as part of a Missouri Sunshine Law request from the BDN, which facilitates the printing of the student paper.
Among other findings:
- No administrative protocol for editing of the student paper was provided under the Sunshine Law request. Superintendent Mark Ficken has said that such a protocol has existed for three or four years. He said that distribution of the student paper was stopped because the protocol requires the principal to edit the paper before it is sent to be printed.
- Journalism curriculum identifies numerous teacher responsibilities but none for the principal or superintendent. Ficken was well within his legal rights when he stopped distribution of some copies of the paper, as outlined in the U.S. Supreme Court case Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. None of the documents provided outline editing or distribution procedures specific to the Boonville R-1 School District.
- Editing marks and comments made to page proofs of the Oct. 2 edition were not reflected in the final version of the paper. Additionally, there is no information on the documents identifying who performed the editing. Some of the concerns identified in the comments are similar to concerns Ficken identified in an Oct. 2 interview with the BDN.
