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NEWS

Pennsylvania School Press Association endorses Senate Bill 806: The Free School Media Act

7/23/2019

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The PSPA Board of Directors is proud to endorse Pennsylvania Senate Bill 806, the Free School Media Act. We're excited to see some remarkable progress towards New Voices legislation in our state. Our endorsement is below.

​Please read more and learn how you can get involved at the PA New Voices site.

We, the Pennsylvania School Press Association, are writing to express our sincere hope that you will join us in endorsing Pennsylvania’s New Voices legislation.

New Voices is a nonpartisan, grassroots, student-driven effort to create state-based student free press protections and to prevent retaliation against advisers who stand up for student free press rights. As of the spring of 2019, there are New Voices laws in 14 states: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. New legislation has been introduced this year in 11 additional states.

New Voices protections are needed because, without them, school administrators can (and do) censor many student publications for “any reasonable pedagogical purpose” (Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 1988). Censoring students not only quells their engagement in the life of their community, but sends a clear message that their voices are not valued and respected. 

Under current Pennsylvania code, school publications do have some protections, but we have found that many schools and their administrators may not follow this code. In order to ensure student First Amendment rights here in Pennsylvania, we need stronger protections for our students and their advisers. We need New Voices. 

In Pennsylvania, our own New Voices campaign has been underway since August 2018. After meeting with student journalists and their adviser last winter, Sen. Andy Dinniman (D) agreed to draft legislation. Through a collaborative effort between student journalists and advisers from across the Commonwealth, the bill was revised and ultimately drafted by Sen. Dinniman. Sen. Dinniman has since garnered the support of Senators Brewster (D), Muth (D), and Browne (R), who have signed on to co-sponsor the bill, now “Senate Bill 806: The Free School Media Act.”

While Sen. Dinniman is seeking more co-sponsors to ensure that the bill is picked up by a committee, your support can help. Contact your state senator to encourage them to support or even co-sponsor SB806, encourage your local media to do stories about the movement and to editorialize in favor of the bill, connect with other organizations who may be willing to endorse the bill, or simply connect with New Voices PA on Facebook and Twitter to keep up to date.

We are hopeful that, with your support, we can pass legislation that not only protects student speech, but advisers’ jobs as well. 
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In solidarity,
The Pennsylvania School Press Association Board of Directors
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Summer Critique FAQs and Deadline Extended!

7/16/2019

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PSPA wants to see as many Pennsylvania student publications participate in summer critiques as possible! We're extending the 2019 critique deadline through July 31 for newspapers, online news, literary magazines, and broadcast. (We're already at capacity for spring delivery yearbooks.)

Submit your publications for critique today!

A few points to know about critiques:
  • We've got amazing judges. All of our judges have both professional industry and scholastic journalism experience. They are committed to offering descriptive feedback in all evaluations. (We do our critiques in the summer months because our judges are generally a little less busy— because they have a lot to write and share!) Expect to learn a lot!
  • Paid membership includes one publication critique for each school. Get your money's worth on the annual membership fee—you've got nothing to lose. PSPA is happy to complete additional publication critiques for the other publications at your school for $50 each.
  • Your publication is only competing against itself in the critique process. Judges score each publication individually and not by comparison to other publications. Critique results are sent only to advisers—not to school administration or students. You determine the best ways to share feedback that will help your publication to grow.
  • Summer logistics got you down? We know it can be tough to secure check requests or credit card payment from school business offices during the summer. Register for membership and submit your publications for critique even if payment won't come through until school starts up again. We won't release critique results until membership / critique fees are paid, but we don't want to wait to start the process!
  • We introduced online news publications as a category in 2018 because so many of our Pennsylvania schools have online news sites. Help us to grow this category by sharing your publication for review!
  • Critiques are not a fundraiser for PSPA. We pay our judges, we handle mailings, and we handle all the turnaround on getting the feedback to you. We're an all-volunteer organization, so we keep this cost as low as possible--much lower than what we've researched for some other state and national organizations. 
  • First-year membership is free this year and does not include a critique, but first-year members are welcome to submit publications for critique at $50 each. 
  • Top-ranked publications WILL compete! All publications earning GOLD recognition will be sent on to a new judge where your publication will compete against other GOLD publications to determine who wins the annual All-State Keystone Award in each category. ​See our 2018 Keystone winners.

Any questions? Please reach out and let us know!
We look forward to seeing the rest of our categories fill up for summer 2019...

Broadcast Critique Entry Form
Literary Magazine Critique Entry Form
Newspaper Critique Entry Form
Online Publication Entry Form



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ABOUT PSPA
The mission of the Pennsylvania School Press Association is to promote excellence and responsibility in scholastic journalism through developing students who possess sound journalism skills, demonstrate ethical decision making and recognize, uphold, and advocate First Amendment rights through responsible citizenship and informed media consumption.
CONTACT US
​Questions? Can't find something on our site? Contact us!

Aaron Fitzpatrick - PSPA President

afitzpatrick@freedomarea.org

PSPA Mailing Address
P.O. Box 385
​Manchester, PA 17345
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