Board allows discussion on freedom of expression policy

But what happened with the Ephrata High School newspaper remains unclear

More than 50 people showed up at Tuesday's Ephrata School Board meeting once again to find out what happened with the high school newspaper.

Once again, Board President Bill Correll told those assembled at the gymnasium that a grievance filed by the Washington Education Association prevented discussion on the issue.

But the board did allow discussion on the district policy governing the school newspaper and freedom of expression, though the audience was still left wanting more.

"What you're saying is what we want to talk about, we can't talk about," said Sylvia Hammond, a parent and substitute teacher with the district.

To recap: The seventh edition of the Ephrata High School student newspaper, the Eye of the Tiger, was taken off the shelf of Rock Park Coffee after a school vice principal expressed concern about some of its content. Principal Scott Hudson said no one from the school's administration demanded the owner of the coffee shop remove the papers, and the business was free to do as it wished. Copies of the paper remained in the school and archived in its library, he said.

At the last board meeting, English teacher Lois Gibbens resigned her post as adviser to the paper and had filed a grievance stating the administration had violated her academic freedom.

The eighth edition was then reviewed by Hudson prior to publication, though Gibbens said the principal suggested no changes.

Logan Aimone, a journalism adviser at Wenatchee High School, told the board that his district has a similar policy in place that allows prior review of a student newspaper by the school administration.

But, Aimone added, just because the principal has that authority doesn't mean he has to exercise it.

"To have a good journalism program, you need to have a true journalism program, not a mouthpiece for the administration," Aimone said.

During its first seven years of existence, the Eye of the Tiger had always been reviewed by the administration prior to publication, according to Gibbens. This year — Hudson's first — Gibbens said she

requested she be excused from that review, which Hudson honored until the eighth and final edition of the paper.

Hudson said in an interview that he had been led to believe that the prior review had not taken place in the past, so he did not look over the papers for most of this year.

"Then it became clear that we should start going to prior review," he said.

Prompted by a question from Correll, Aimone said that school boards are "very infrequently" held accountable for anything controversial that appears in a student newspaper. In fact, Aimone said the Student Press Law Center states that the further removed the administration is from the paper, the less liable it will be.

"It's in your best interest to let Mrs. Gibbens do the job she was hired to do," he said.

Superintendent Jerry Simon said the administrative review process in the past had always been "collegial." Administrators' primary concerns, he said, have been that privacy rights be respected and the paper remain

fair and balanced on controversial subjects.

The quality of the paper (which has received both state and national awards for journalism excellence) has never the issue, Simon said.

"It's a quality paper. We know that. It's done a very nice job. There's no disputing that," he said.

Hudson said in an interview that he had received "lots of complaints" about the seventh issue of the paper. The complaints centered on a spread of stories about teen pregnancy, language within an opinion piece about

evolution, a headline on an opinion piece about alternative schools and a story about a computer system crash.

"I don't know how come it's such a huge blowup, with me doing what the policy says I can do," he said.

Gibbens said she made an offer to retract the grievance that was rejected by Simon. The offer to retract included four conditions that Gibbens said she could not share.

Chip Halvorson, union president for Ephrata teachers, said Simon could accept the retraction now, and the issue doesn't have to turn into a public-relations problem for the district.

Simon said the district is now at step three of the grievance process, where the grievant must choose whether to have a hearing or arbitration. A hearing would be held before the school board, whom Simon said should not be prejudiced by discussing the issue.

In an interview after the meeting, Gibbens said she would like to go back to advising the paper, but she doesn't know if that can happen.

"I want it. I want to do the job," she said. "I love seeing kids be empowered by seeing their words in print."