Seaholm Highlander

Members of both the Highlander and the Groves Scriptor were optimistic following a meeting held to discuss the planned rewriting Birmingham Public School’s publications policy.

“I’m encouraged,” Highlander adviser Ben Harwood said. “It’s a long process, but I think it was a good start.”

The Birmingham Public Schools Board of Education was prompted to rewrite their policy by NEOLA, the district’s policy-writing company.

BPS Deputy Superintendant Paul DeAngelis stressed to those in attendance that the district is aiming to match the policy to the publications’ existing procedure.

“I am not here to change the current practices we have in place,” DeAngelis said.

Representing Seaholm were Co-Editors in Chief Josh Cohen and Lanie Barron, Opinion Editor Mari Manoogian, Photo Editor Lindsay Boeckl and News Editor Emily Gordy, along with Harwood and Assistant Principal Staci Peterson.

Seven members of the Groves Scriptor also attended the meeting, including Co-Editors in Chief Jules Ashe, Kerry Concannon, News Editor Koby Levin, Opinion Editor Jeremy Kazdan, and advisor Laura Redman, as well as Groves Dean Mike Lonze.

BPS Board of Education Vice President Susan Hill and Trustee Robert Lawrence were present as well.

DeAngelis said that a subcommittee will be created to write the final policy, consisting of both newspaper advisors, members of the Board of Education, and Derby assistant principal David Simpson, with input from a number of students. He hopes to have the policy to the board by March.

Redman was encouraged that the Board was encouraging student input.

“Knowing that they’re including students from both of our staffs makes me feel comfortable,” Redman said.

Harwood agreed, praising the district’s approach, saying that he was pleased with the students’ involvement.

“I think that was a good thing for me as a teacher and as an adviser to see the [student] participation,” Harwood said.

NEOLA provides policy outlines, and districts can edit them accordingly. There are four possible templates for publication policies, ranging from nonpublic forum, which involves strict prior review, to the more lenient limited public forum.

Both Harwood and Redman stressed that they hope to eliminate any opportunity for prior review.

“The staff that’s here is not going to be here forever, the administration’s not going to be here forever, I’m not going to be here forever,” Harwood said. “We need to make sure that, ideally, the paper runs the same way.”

In addition to discussing the four policy templates, the group also participated in an activity concerning past court cases regarding censorship.

“I feel like everyone was ready going in, so I don’t know how necessary the court case activity was at the beginning,” Cohen said. “Mr. Harwood had already gone over it with us…I would rather we just went straight into the policy right when we got there.”

Regardless, Cohen was pleased with the overall meeting.

“I thought the meeting went quite smoothly. I thought it was both informative and productive,” Cohen said.

Harwood said he too was encouraged by the meeting, adding that the new policy will not only affect the current staff members, but the publications for years to come.

“This will set up how publications are going to be run for the future, for years and years,” Harwood said. “In my time here, the district has been tremendously supportive of our publications. It’s essential that we do the right thing now to maintain what we’ve already been doing.”

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