Dear New Voices advisers and friends,

The last several months have been uniquely challenging for student journalists, but they've presented us with an opportunity to completely change the conversation around the stories students are trying to tell and the ways in which censorship impacts your entire communities. COVID-19 brought new challenges, an increasing focus on the importance of student media and, unfortunately, a whole new swath of subjective and dangerous censorship. We want to take these stories to your legislators.

SPLC has put together a COVID-19 Journalism Survey and we need your help in getting it out to students and advisers across your state. This is going to be an IMPORTANT part of our New Voices work throughout 2021, so getting this out to as many student journalists as possible is key. Please begin distributing this survey to your staff and friends, through your social media networks, to any outreach lists you have put together, and to any advisers and student media programs across your state as soon as possible. 

This survey is intended to capture information about the scope of COVID-19 censorship, whether or not students yet realize they have been censored. Any student or adviser may fill it out, and their contact information will be kept confidential unless the student or adviser consents to its release.

We are collecting responses from this survey through January 31 in the hopes of using them both in conversation with legislators and to spark a nationwide conversation about student journalism and student media censorship. Please reach out to your networks more than once this month. Remember that the more responses from your state, the stronger the argument we can make in support of student press freedom. Your legislators have no idea what you've been through this year, and we cannot let them ignore it. 

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks so much for your help on this.

Best,
Hillary

The Student Journalism Competitions (SJC), which are normally held in the Fall, will be help remotely this year. 

The prompts and information will be sent out to advisers in January. The students will have from January 25 until February 5 to compete in their chosen category.

The board is working on finalizing the details for registration, prompts, rules, and creating an adviser "To-do" list.

Keep checking our website and social media pages for updates. We will also be emailing advisors. Please reach out with questions.

Journalism education stretches year-round for many of us. After such a challenging school year, we are especially excited to share Pennsylvania-based summer journalism education that is free. 

Point Park University is offering a wonderful opportunity for journalism educators and student journalists to continue learning from experts this summer. The Pittsburgh-based university has planned a robust schedule of webinars on a diverse collection of topics.

Several of our PSPA members are leading webinars designed for other advisers and teachers, themed on topics that we brainstormed that might help with some practical knowledge and skills— such as New Voices protections, covering government meetings, yearbook planning, and social media strategies.

Point Park's digital content and PR/advertising webinars are open to both high school students and adults, while their student journalism workshops are designed specifically for high school students. All of the topics are practical, relevant, and designed to support journalism and communications programs. We encourage you to share these opportunities with your publication students.

We're excited to partner with Point Park University on these programs, and we look forward to seeing PSPA advisers and students at the webinars! Please contact SummerCamps@PointPark.edu with any questions.

Updates from PSPA

At our most recent meeting, our board members—most of whom are teachers—breathed a collective sigh that the unprecedented challenges of the 2019-2020 school year are over (or nearly over), at least for classroom instruction. 

Like you, we are tired. 

Also like you, we are all facing a great deal of uncertainty ahead as Pennsylvania schools adapt to COVID-19. 

Our board wanted to reach out to share what we know right now about PSPA’s plans for summer and for proceeding into the 2020-2021 school year. 

But, before we jump into business, we also want to congratulate you, our advisers. We know that the last few months have been extra-complicated for so many of you, as you worked to stick to deadlines, adjust sections and coverage, push out the final issues of the year, and encourage publication students through all of the challenges of remote learning. We’ve watched your posts and shares with so much admiration—knowing that what happens behind the scenes of a publication is more complicated than anyone else in your school might understand.

Our board salutes you for everything that you’ve done. 

We also empathize if you did not get everything done with your students. We all have some degree of sadness and regret about how the school year ended. It has sometimes been hard to stay focused on the positives. We get it, and we still applaud you for supporting student journalists to the best of your ability.

Even with all the uncertainty, a fresh start in the new school year sounds promising to all of us.

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MEMBERSHIP UPDATE

PSPA will extend the 2019-2020 membership to June 30, 2021 for all of our current member schools. 

There is no need to renew your PSPA membership, and no fee for the 2020-2021 membership.
We’re simply extending your membership through next year. 

Our board reached this unanimous decision with sensitivity to schools’ financial challenges, questions about whether advisers would have access to funds, and our own uncertainty about the programming we’ll be able to offer in the 2020-2021 school year.

We want to continue to support student journalism in Pennsylvania for the next school year, and through the challenges of COVID-19, regardless of our schools’ ability to pay a membership fee.

If you have any questions about this decision, please contact us.

LEARN MORE ABOUT MEMBERSHIP

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SUMMER CRITIQUES ARE STILL ON!

We will offer our annual PSPA summer critiques to all member schools in the following categories:

• Yearbooks
• Literary Magazines
• Newspapers
• Broadcast Packages
• Online Publications

A publication critique is an evaluation of a publication's quality based upon a rubric. Critiques are completed by experts from across the country. Your publication staff will receive a document full of helpful, constructive feedback that will help you to improve. 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.

The deadline for summer critique submission is July 31, 2020.
The fee for each critique is $60.
The critique fee covers paying our judges as well as the logistics of mailing and online submissions. If you’re unable to access these funds prior to critique registration, we can invoice you once your critique is complete. 

Please read more about our summer critique process and instructions for submission here. Our judges look forward to reviewing your publications!

START CRTIQUE SUBMISSIONS

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WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT SJCS

At our June board meeting, we voted to design our regional competitions to run remotely in fall 2020. We based this decision on the news we are hearing from many schools throughout the state—that field trips are uncertain for the fall. In order to keep things as fair and open to as many students as possible, online competitions seem to be our best option.

Designing what this online system for competition looks like is our board’s summer project. Our board members are experienced in all of our categories, and we’re looking forward to the challenge. We will update you on our plans in early fall. In the meanwhile, we’d like to hear your suggestions and questions!

LEARN MORE ABOUT SJCS

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IN CASE YOU NEED HELP...

We hope that the uncertainties of education this fall are not impacting your publication staff. Still, we wanted to make sure you all saw the Student Press Law Center’s High School Budget Advocacy Toolkit.

“If you suspect your program may be eliminated or weakened as a result of COVID-19 budget cuts, this toolkit is for you,” the site states. We’ve reviewed the site, and we all agree that it presents some useful tools, talking points, and even sample letters and communications strategies.

If you are facing any challenges with funding, censorship, or other areas of concern, please also reach out to our board. PSPA exists to support you, and we will do everything we can to help.

_____________________


​RECOGNIZE A PA JOURNALISM TEACHER 

Do you know a journalism teacher or adviser who goes above and beyond to support student journalism at your school? Nominate a journalism teacher/adviser for Pennsylvania Journalism Teacher of the Year by July 31, 2020. We encourage you to take a look at the application process early, as several components are required.

LEARN MORE ABOUT JTOY

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We wish all of you some much-deserved relaxation and peace in summer 2020.
 
Watch for more updates soon.

​Runner-up Cole Skuse has been a member of the Print Media Workshop at Freedom Area High School since 2017 for the last three years, and currently serves as both Editor-in-Chief of the Shawnee Yearbook, News Editor of FHS Press, and Copy Editor and Business Manager for both publications. He is also part of the Broadcast Media Workshop, where he anchors and helps to produce Bulldog Beat.

“All the administrators in our district can attest to both the challenge and the honor of a Cole Skuse interview,” Freedom Area High School Principal William Deal wrote. “Cole comes to an interview with hard-hitting questions and thorough research. He is willing to call out inconsistencies and obfuscation. He will not shy away from a controversial topic. Instead, he seeks to report facts from all sides of issues and provides information to our school stakeholders to help them make educated and informed decisions.”

​The Pennsylvania Student Journalist of the Year award was named for Dr. Jane Blystone in 2011, and includes a $500 scholarship for the winner, as well as $100 awards for runners-up. Competition standards and rubrics align with the Journalism Education Association's Student Journalist of the Year competition. The annual competition is open to senior student journalists.

​Please visit the JEA SJOY page for information about preparing a portfolio. Sample portfolios from last year's state winners are posted on JEA's site. Portfolios for the 2021 Student Journalist of the Year will be due in early spring 2021.

In January 2019, Sen. Andy Dinniman (D, 19th District) agreed to draft and sponsor what has since become Senate Bill 806, the “Free School Media Act,” making Pennsylvania one of 10 states with pending New Voices legislation.  Fourteen states have already passed similar legislation,  protecting the rights of student journalists and their advisers. 

The bill is currently being discussed in the Senate Education Committee, on which Dinniman serves as Minority Chair. In January 2020, Rep. Melissa Shusterman (D, Chester/Montgomery) has agreed in principle to draft and sponsor New Voices legislation in the House of Representatives.

For the bill to become law, it must be taken up by and make it out of committees and pass floor votes in both houses of Congress before it would be sent to the governor’s desk.

PSPA has endorsed this bill, and we are excited to see its progress. Although progress is being made, we need your help, student journalists and advisers!

A few ways to help:

• Contact your legislators in the House and Senate, and ask for their support for New Voices. Not comfortable writing your own letter or pressed for time? No worries. We’ve got your back!
  • Simply make a copy of THIS FORM LETTER 
  • Edit the highlighted text with your specific information. Click HERE to find your legislators.
• Legislators love to hear from engaged students! Encourage your students to write and send similar letters.
• Share THIS LETTER with your students—written by Pennsylvania students for Pennsylvania students seeking New Voices support.
• Connect with us on social media!
  • Twitter: @PaVoices 
  • Instagram: @newvoicespa
• Visit us online: www.newvoicespa.com
• Join us and learn other ways to get involved with Pennsylvania’s New Voices movement! Email us at panewvoices@gmail.com.