A:
JEA will notify adminstrators and local media of your certification. A certificate and pin, as well as your listing in the CJE/MJE Directory, will testify to your qualification.
A: Enjoy being with your staff. Let them know you appreciate them and expect them to do their best.
Learn as much as you can about typography, layout and design, writing and press law. Read professional magazines from the worlds of art and design, advertising, and computer use. Buy publications from the JEA Bookstore — if you are a member, you get a discount.
Consume the Student Press Law Center report.
Open your eyes to the graphic world around you in magazines, on CD covers and in junk mail and college catalogues. Share this knowledge with your students and expect them to apply it.
Help them when they need help, but remember it is their publication. You’ve had your opportunity to be young and to gain leadership — let them have theirs.
Enjoy advising:
I enjoy being part of a creative process. No two years are the same because of the students and the changes in our culture.I cherish the day before winter break when all the former editors and staff members who are in town come to visit. They are there to see me and to remind the present staff that they are part of a living heritage.
I thoroughly enjoy the time together, even the few nights before deadline — but not the day we miss deadline. I have friends from my first staffs and people whose lives I have touched. They have told me so. This is real success.
I wish I’d known:
I wish I had known how to approach experienced advisers and I wish experienced advisers had taken the time to talk to me. I had been editor of high school and college yearbooks, so I knew the language of publications and the production cycle. I had taught five years before I had the responsibility of guiding students in non-graded scholastic activities.I looked like I knew what I was doing, but I was lonely in my school. Advising yearbook and magazine occupied all my after-school hours. Newspaper advisers lasted until they had tenure or a transfer. Then came a newspaper adviser who had a few years of experience and who said we were going to CSPA.
I wish I had known years earlier the benefits of attending national scholastic press association conventions. They really are more than a critique service (though do not underestimate the value of a well-written critique book and thoroughly judged publication). VHSL, JEA/NSPA, CSPA and SIPA all added depth to my understanding of basics, introduced me to creative and professional advisers who were willing to share, influenced me to learn more about press law and desktop publishing and provided me with some of my best friends.
— Carol Lange
Q: Do any school systems offer honors credit for
publications courses?
A:
The Independence (MO) School District offers weighted credit for advanced journalism,
advanced yearbook and advanced broadcasting. (This would be at least the second
year for students taking a journalism/media class and for some it would be the
third.) In another year, advanced broadcasting will also offer dual college
credit through our community college system.
The district has a policy on courses receiving weighted credit, and it first
must be approved by the district's K-12 curriculum council. It then goes to
the Board of Education. The process takes nearly a school year to implement,
but once it is approved, it is in place for all students who take the classes.
Let us know if you'd like further information or paperwork on this. Good luck.
— Molly Clemons
mclemons@indep.k12.mo.us
A:
At St. Charles (IL) H.S. a few years (no, QUITE a few years!) back, my solution
was to offer the course pass-fail. The first course was journalistic writing
and was weighted because it counted as an English class and both honors and
regular sections were offered, but production classes did not work that way.
This worked well for us because the class was on students' transcripts but did
not penalize them in class rank calculations.
— Candace Perkins Bowen
cbowen@kent.edu
A:
Students working on publications at Kirkwood High School may receive an Honors grade based on the discretion of the adviser. The policy was that a student had to make an A on all work, and if the adviser decided that student had gone above and beyond, then an Honors grade could be given. Students may earn honors in a lot of classes at Kirkwood High, but to do so they must sign a contract to complete extra work. There was no contract in the publications classes. Everyone knew students who performed well in those classes had to spend a lot of extra hours. That's why an honors grade was left to the discretion of the adviser. It worked well since it was rare that a student who received a straight A was not doing honors work. The honors grades could be given only at semester, but that's the only grade that counted on the GPA.
— H. L. Hall, JEA President
HLHall1422@aol.com