News Writing
Click on each headline to read the full story.
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This year, the stories I've been proudest of have been centered around issues with technology, mainly the transition to iPads and AI.
Graphic by Morgan Salisbury
Back in November, our district implemented an AI software called Gaggle with the hopes of preventing suicide and self harm amongst students via their devices.
Now, four months into having Gaggle, students and staff have found many holes in the initial plan. In this story I talk about how photography students' images were deleted after being flagged for supposed nudity and pornography.
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This year, our district transitioned from Macbooks to iPads, a big and very unwanted change for the student body. One of the first things my advisor and I noticed was not only the device's limits for CTE classes, but also the lack of an option to create a passcode.
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After realizing how big of a security threat this could potentially be, I spent weeks emailing IT, the school district, and cyber security experts to prove just how dangerous the lack of passcodes could be.
Photo by Maya Smith
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A student scrolls through the anonymous LHS confessions account. Photo by Maya Smith
After seeing an increase in a new type of Instagram accounts that make cyberbullying as easy as ever, I knew this was something that someone needed to report on. The accounts have an anonymous Google Form to fill out, and then post the responses to their feed.
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An unexpected hurdle I learned during my reporting was how little administration could do for the students targeted on these accounts. Since the form was cleverly not made on a school account, neither our new AI software or our IT Google access can unveil who runs them.
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I decided to dig a little deeper than just stating the possible consequences of the accounts. Cyberbullying, misinformation, rumors and even cries for help are all flags that our student body needs help if this trend is on the rise.
At the beginning of 2023, I was thrown into live reporting a district school board meeting. I had never been to one, and felt like I had no clue what was going on. By the end of the meeting, and around 50 Tweets published later, I learned that I actually enjoyed the process. The hustle, the politics of our schools, and hearing community members made me know this was for me.
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I continued going to these meetings following the decision to close up to three elementary schools in our district. I knew many families could not go to every single meeting, were scared to speak up, or were uneducated on the issues at hand. I felt it was a responsibility to my community to continue to report on the closures.
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This specific story follows one of the first meetings talking about staffing cuts and school closures.
Holding her sign high, Save Our Schools representative Erica Hunter pickets outside of the USD 497 district office before a meeting on Feb. 27. Save Our Schools organized to fight past closure discussions and met before the meeting to organize who would speak. Photo by Maya Smith
Showing bravery, a Broken Arrow third grader speaks to the USD 497 school board on why they should keep her school open. The student was one of many who chose to speak on behalf of their school. Photo by Maya Smith
In response to school closures being on the table, Pinckney and Broken Arrow Elementary families held hearings with the board to plea for their schools to stay open. Teachers, students and parents gave reason after reason, proving to be a very emotional thing to report on.
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It was at this point in the school year where I, as a solo editor-in-chief, was doing most reporting solo when traditionally teamwork was our method. Regardless of it being the spring of my junior year, I knew I wanted to follow this story to the very end, no matter what the outcome was or if I had help.
This was the final story posted about the closures, announcing to the community that two elementary schools would be closing at the end of the year. The Budget was one of the first news sources that broke the news to the community.
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My fellow editors and I sat at this meeting until after midnight, through hours of public comment, typing until our fingers felt like they would fall off. I took the lead on the story since I had been to so many of the meetings leading up to the final decision.
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After following this story from day one, it was very difficult to keep composure through all of the emotion in the end. Regardless, I am very proud to have saw the story through and helped inform so many of the board's process to get to that point.
Reading a sign, a Pinckney Elementary student participates in a rally outside of the district office before a meeting commences. Photo by Maya Smith
Photo from Douglas County Police Dept.
In November, Lawrence High went into a lockdown during morning classes. The threat at hand was a student rumored to have brought a gun into the building, which was later revealed to be a pellet gun without the required orange tip.
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Throughout the entire situation, LHS' new principal kept everyone calm, communicating updates frequently. A new text service was also added to the emails sent from the district which proved to be a good addition for lockdown situations.
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KSPA First place news writing, November 2023
During the fall of 2023, the USD 497 school board approved a proposal to change to an 'open borders' enrollment policy. Regardless of a student's address, they could now attend Lawrence schools if seats were available.
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Many USD 497 parents and students' first questions were in regards to athletics and transferring for better programs. Others worried about transportation and how their money would be allocated moving forward.
Graphic by Emmie Hurd
Photo by Maya Smith
On one of the final days before school started, I received a call from school board member GR Gordon Ross. He was calling to tell me about an issue presenting itself to the district days before the new school year would start; that they did not have enough crossing guards to fulfill all locations in the district.
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GR went on to tell me he had just applied for one of the positions, and told me just how easy it is for adults to help out. This was one of my first stories back in school and was a good way to get back into the swing of writing.
Right as we were going back to school, there was a slight increase in my county's Covid cases, something that had not happened since the beginning of the summer.
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With this in mind, I decided to write a basic overview to make more aware of the new variant.
Photo by Maya Smith