It wasn’t what the School Board did at a Dec. 5 meeting that caught the attention of student journalists across the county, it was what they didn’t do. When member-at-large Ryan McElveen raised a motion to review the rights of the district’s student reporters, nine of the 12 board members voted against it.

McElveen said the motion stemmed from the Hayfield Secondary School controversy, In which coaches allegedly illegally recruited athletes. According to McElveen, he had received reports of student publications in the county that were censored when they tried to report on the topic.

“I’ve heard from publications around the county, concerns about prior review and the potential for censorship of publications,” McElveen said. “So the purpose of the motion was to look at all of our policies and make sure that they aligned with First Amendment rights and did not require prior review or authorization before publication.”

The motion, which was seconded by Mount Vernon district representative Mateo Dunne, reads “that the school board direct the governance committee to ensure that all FCPS policies and regulations, including but not limited to the [Students’ Rights and Responsibilities], uphold the rights of student journalists to make good decisions regarding content without prior review or approval.” Dunne and Mason district representative Dr. Ricardy Anderson voted in favor of the motion alongside McElveen, while the other nine board members did not.

Dunne listed some of the possible reasons a board member might vote against the motion. For example, students have more restrictive First Amendment rights to free speech when they’re at school than when they aren’t, which extends to student publications. Additionally, if a student posts something libelous or slanderous in an FCPS-sponsored publication, then FCPS may be found liable for that material. Dunne also suggests the school district as a whole might prefer to stay neutral, in particularly polarizing topics.

“I had received multiple reports that student journalists were being instructed by school principals or other administrators to not publish about the Hayfield football scandal, and I felt that was inappropriate,” Dunne said. “I feel we learn civics, not just in civics class, we govern our schools and schools are a microcosm of our society and we need to approximate the environment that students will face in the ‘real world’ once they graduate from high school. The restrictions that I had mentioned earlier, I didn’t think that applied in large measure to the Hayfield football scandal and I think it was inappropriate to censor them.”

In the meeting, member-at-large Ilryong Moon asked superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid to explain the rights of student journalists as they currently stood. Reid diverted to chief equity officer Dr. Nardos King, who did not have the information readily available. After confirming with McElveen what the intentions of the motion were, Moon said that, because the motion was written only to review student journalists’ rights and not expand them, the motion was easier to support. He later voted against it.

“The concern that I had was at the end, if you look at the line that says ‘uphold the rights of a student journalist to make good decisions regarding content, without prior review or approval.’” Moon said. “Is that the rights that student journalists have right now? There is no prior review or approval whatsoever in whatever the content they want to publish? I thought that there were review or approval processes, because I could not imagine students just writing anything or everything they wanted to write without restraint whatsoever, so I voted no because I did not think the language that was crafted by Mr. McElveen and Mr. Dunne was going to serve the purposes they were intending.”
McElveen’s definition of prior review is in keeping with that of the Student Press Law Center (SPLC). It is when an administrator reads or watches all student reporting before it is published. While the SPLC does not include censorship in its definition of prior review, it does caution that there is a slippery slope from prior review into prior restraint, where after reading student reporters’ work, an administrator blocks it from publishing even if the piece does not indicate a legal reason not to publish. The SPLC advises that a story not be published if it is unlawful, libelous or slanderous, legally obscene, legally invasive or seriously disruptive to the school environment.

Additionally, every official student publication inside of FCPS has an adviser or journalism teacher who both teaches and ensures best journalistic practices are followed and reads and edits the student reporters’ work before publishing; edits by advisers are not prior review, because advisers are not administrators.

“I’m confident, based on the instruction that our students receive from our awesome journalism teachers and their working knowledge of these regulations, that there isn’t a need for prior review,” principal Dr. Amy Goodloe said. “We haven’t had an incident that I’m aware of, or at least while I’ve been here, that would be cause for concern.”

Braddock District representative Rachna Sizemore Heizer described the motion as “dangerous” and cautioned against giving student journalists the freedom to publish hate speech or make violent threats. Multiple board members suggested the upcoming SR&R review was a more appropriate place to revisit the issue.

The FCPS Regulations and Procedures Governing Freedom of Expression by Students do not instruct principals to conduct—or not to conduct—prior review. Instead, they direct student editors, advisers and principals to work together to create an editorial policy which should not allow anything the regulations document doesn’t, and promote responsible journalism. Because the regulations already prohibit hate speech and editorial policies must follow the regulations, hate speech or violent threats cannot be published in a student newspaper.

In a survey of 14 student leaders of high school publications (broadcast journalism, newspaper/magazine and yearbook) around the county, four said their publication went through prior review and four had been censored in the last four years.

“FCPS has been, for many years, a beacon of hope for student press freedoms across America,” McLean senior Aaron Stark, editor-in-chief of The Highlander, McLean’s student newspaper, said in the survey. “We’ve seen an impressive amount of First Amendment Press Freedom Awards go to FCPS schools. Despite this, FCPS seems to be trending away from this unique quality, especially with recent measures like the guidance for student publications.”

The First Amendment Press Freedom Award is issued by the Journalism Education Association to high school student publications that actively support and honor the First Amendment. In 2024, three FCPS publications received the award: CHS for the 10th consecutive year, McLean for the eighth consecutive year and West Springfield for the second consecutive year. When asked in the survey how supported they felt by school administrators West Springfield chose “mostly supported” and McLean said they felt “very supported.”

“The bottom line is student voice is valued here at Chantilly High School,” Goodloe said. “Our different publications, our different journalism outlets really are a vehicle for student voice, not only reporting on what’s happening here at Chantilly, but talking to one another to understand student perspective, working hard to understand staff perspective and sharing accurate information to ensure that all of the readers, listeners and viewers are informed about issues that are important to Chantilly High School.”

McElveen says it’s not just the administrators at these schools that value student voice. If he sent a message with his motion, he hopes it’s that there are people who care about student journalism.

“I think, oftentimes, advisers and student journalists kind of feel forgotten in the process,” McElveen said. “If nothing else, this motion should remind them that people do care and want to look out for their rights, even if not everyone does, at least there are voices out there that care.”

McElveen says he intends to revisit the issue at a future board meeting or the board’s annual review of the SR&R on March 11.

Click here to hear School Board member-at-large Ryan McElveen’s thoughts on the future of student journalism in FCPS.

This story was originally published on The Purple Tide | The Knightly News on February 7, 2025.