Student paper loses adviser over story

CHAPEL HILL -- A middle school has fired a UNC-Chapel Hill journalism professor from his volunteer job advising the student newspaper after a story about students assaulting a school bus driver appeared in the paper.

Smith Middle School administrators confiscated the issue from students in March but recently redistributed the paper without the article in question.

"I was just a volunteer trying to help my kid's school," said journalism professor Chris Roush. "I'm disappointed they don't want a parent's help."

Roush visited the middle school's journalism class, taught by Becky Burke, once a week and helped students with writing and interviewing, he said. He also had the paper printed at UNC-CH, and the journalism school picked up the $250 tab, he said.

Smith Middle School Principal Valerie Reinhart said she wants to keep the paper's publication in-house because the article broke the school system's student confidentiality rules.

"We need to be sure that the people involved with the publication of the paper are very aware of the rules for public school officials," she said.

Burke could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Reinhart said she expects to be working with her next year "publishing many newspapers."

Reinhart also said she will review every paper before it is published.

"That's [school] board policy," she said.

The story, "Problems on Bus 96," said several students were charged with assaulting a bus driver in December. One of the accused students, who also works for the newspaper, posed for a picture that accompanied the story. The story was printed on Page 14, the last page of the paper.

In the redistributed copies, every article is reprinted, but there is a blank space where the bus article appeared with small print that reads, "The article that was in this space has been removed."

Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va., an advocate for student free-press rights, said The Cyclone Scoop broke no confidentiality rules by naming students because those rules apply only to school staff, not to students.

Jacob Hoerger, a student reporter for the paper, at first was upset that administrators confiscated the paper but said he was fine with the redistributed edition minus the article.

"I don't think we did anything wrong by putting the names in the article, but the school was put in a position and had to take the names out," he said.

Fellow reporter Neal Myers-Perry was not as forgiving.

"I don't think it's right," he said, adding that he is looking forward to moving on to high school next year. "Thank God."