The Churchill County School District in Nevada will not censor the publication of a student newspaper story about an investigation of one teacher at the local high school despite a grievance from the local teachers' union. The story, by Churchill County High School student Lauren MacLean in the school newspaper The Flash, examines "parent advocates demanding the district investigate Honor Choir audition practices after parents discovered evidence that CCHS music teacher Kathy Archey failed to submit an unknown number of student audition" to the Nevada Music Educators Association Honor/All State Choir program, Stephanie Carroll of the Lahontan Valley News reports.
"I don't control speech, and I don't control press," Superintendent Carolyn Ross told Carroll. "I'm not stopping it." NMEA regional head Susan Benefield told the parents that Archey had the right to remove tapes from submission, but was required to inform the students involved. Ross told Carroll the district had taken "appropriate disciplinary actions by contract, but she could not comment on specific details." MacLean explained her motives for the report: "I knew what could come from this. I wrote the article in a way that it wasn't attacking Kathy Archey ... It was really hard. There was so much on the line, people's jobs, people's reputations." (Read more)
The Churchill County Education Association asked that the story not be printed because it could "harm the teacher's employment and could deprive her 'of any professional advantage without just cause', Kristi Jourdan of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. High schools can censor student publications as long as they tie the justification to a "legitimate educational purpose," Jourdan reports. (Read more)
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