MONTANA -- The Missoula County Public Schools Board of Trustees
is considering a new student publications policy that it hopes will align the
journalism programs at all of its schools, but some worry the new policy too
severely limits students' work.
The proposed policy states that student publications are not public forums
and that administrators will not tolerate material that is "libelous,
obscene, invades the privacy of others, conflicts with the basic educational
mission of the school, socially inappropriate or inappropriate due to the
maturity level of the students, or is materially disruptive to the educational
process."
Elizabeth Kaleva, the school district's attorney, wrote the policy
but said the district will likely delay approving it until students and advisers
have a chance to address the board with any concerns or suggestions.
Kaleva said the policy would help protect students' First Amendment
rights and will be something she could point to when community members question
why the school did not censor an article with a particular point of view.
"It's not common knowledge, frankly, that students have First
Amendment rights," she said. "And its not uncommon for people to
say, 'Well, just shut them down.' It's hard for me to explain
that we can't do that -- and we don't."
But Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, said
the vague wording of the proposed policy is "unbalanced" and, unless
significantly revised, gives administrators a lot of leeway to censor
students' work.
" 'Socially inappropriate' has no legal definition and
just invites abuse by an administrator who wants to pull something he disagrees
with," he said.
Wayne Seitz, the newspaper adviser at Hellgate High School since 1975, said
he fears the new policy will bring more principal oversight, which would have a
negative impact on the work the students do.
"It's a chilling effect always when [students] have that in
front of them," he said. "They worry about the adviser getting in
trouble. They worry about themselves getting in trouble. So they shy away from
topics instead of taking them on and dealing with them."
Kaleva said the new policy is not a reaction to anything that happened with
student media in Missoula County Public Schools but is a part of the
district's efforts to update all of its policies.
The current policy leaves it up to the individual schools to develop a
decision-making structure for student publications, which results in a lack of
consistency among schools as to what content is allowed, she said.
"I guess what we're trying to do is [make it so] that it
shouldn't really matter who the adviser is," Kaleva said. "It
it's OK in one school, it should be OK in another."
The policy also requires that publications provide "an opportunity
for the expression of differing opinions" and gives administrators
authority to "edit or delete material which is inconsistent with the
School District's educational mission."
By Josh Moore, SPLC staff writer
