Philadelphia Inquirer, April 4

An A-plus school paper struggles to press on

By Susan Snyder
Inquirer Staff Writer

The Roxborough High School student newspaper won a first-place journalism award in a statewide competition, even though it had the money to publish only one edition last school year.

With the paper's future in jeopardy, Cathy Rex, a veteran English teacher and faculty adviser for the Ridge Record, wrote a letter to the judges of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association contest, lamenting the school's predicament.

"You are receiving entries from what may be our final issue, published last spring," she told the judges. "... It is unfortunate that, while sports teams continue to be funded fully by the district, academic activities are being decimated."

Rex, however, was able to secure a $1,000 grant from Verizon, which will cover the cost of printing two editions this year, keeping the paper's more than 80-year history alive. The first will come out this week. Rex is donating her time.

Students said while they were pleased with the award -- Roxborough was the only high school in the district to get one -- they were distressed that the newspaper had been defunct this year until now and barely had a presence last year.

"We kind of feel left out because we weren't able to contribute. We wanted to have the same opportunity to win something, too... and it's kind of too late in the year for that," said Chrisanne McKenzie, a senior.

Senior Alicia Williams-Bey said she wished she could have included newspaper experience on her college applications.

"Communications and print journalism is actually the field I'm trying to go into," she said.

Paul Vallas, district chief executive, said schools receive tens of thousands of dollars in discretionary money each year and can fund the activities they choose. Roxborough, which receives nearly $190,000 in such funding, could have paid for a student newspaper, he contended.

"That's enough to sustain a school newspaper, I think," he said.

Roxborough's principal spent the money on the chess club, drama club, mock-trial team, debate team, an after-school student enrichment program, and staffing for after-school detention.

The district, Vallas said, has beefed up chess clubs, Odyssey of the Mind teams, and other after-school groups, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. There will be funding for more than 1,000 clubs next year, he said.

But principal Rebecca Mitchell said that dollars have been tight and that funding for the newspaper was gone when she took over in 2004.

However, on Friday, she promised that there would be a newspaper next year - at least two editions, preferably four if funding could be secured.

"We're going to try to do the very best we can," Mitchell told the newspaper staff.

She told junior Allegra Black, the paper's chief editor: "You don't have to worry, Allegra. We're not going to do away with it at all."

Felecia Ward, a district spokeswoman, said the district was exploring corporate sponsorships for student newspapers and the possibility of publishing them in the district's print shop.

Students said they were perplexed that the district makes sure sports teams and coaches are funded, but newspapers are left to the discretion of each school.

"It just seems like they want more athletics rather than authors and journalists and writers. They want to see more athletes succeed," McKenzie said.

"I concur," added senior Andre Lane.

A check of nearly a dozen high schools in the Philadelphia suburbs showed that all of them have school newspapers. About half said they publish once a month, while the others do four to six issues a year.

In Philadelphia, only 18 of the city's 52 high schools have newspapers and/or journalism clubs.

Hearing of Roxborough's predicament, Barbara Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said: "This is an example of how Philadelphia students are being denied opportunities that suburban students take for granted.

"By denying our kids these opportunities, you're denying them the opportunity to see how they can use the skills they're learning in their classroom in the real world."

Some city schools have maintained their newspapers.

Northeast High principal Kelly Barton said his school publishes the Megaphone four times a year, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

"It's a staple in this building," he said. "Once you start hitting on things like this, you eat away at the fabric of the school, the foundation of the school, the history of the school. This is such a critical piece here."

At Roxborough, Rex said, an effort to sell advertising was not embraced by the community. The staff also tried selling the paper to students for a quarter; that effort fell flat fast.

Yet, her students have been winning local, state and national awards for years, she said. The most recent accolade went to Madeline Coleman, who graduated last spring, for a "spot news" story she wrote about a black Roxborough student who was jumped by three white students off school grounds in a racially motivated attack.

Rex said the newspaper had survived hardships over the years, including a paper shortage during WWII that meant the staff had to mimeograph a one-page edition.

Black, the only returning newspaper staffer, vowed to keep newspaper reporting alive one way or another.

"If we don't have one next year," she said with the principal sitting a few feet away, "I'm going to go independent and start an underground paper. We need to have something."

[BACK TO HEADLINES & DEADLINES HOME PAGE]