High school pulls Vox copies

Copies of the Vox student newspaper were pulled at Gonzaga Prep High School this week after a front page story quoted a Prep student as saying that he had used marijuana and found it to be a positive experience.

The Rev. Kevin Connell, the principal at Prep, said he gathered copies of the newspaper that had been made available in the school library to prevent further circulation of the article, which named the 17-year-old student.

The principal said he was primarily concerned that the admission of drug use might have “negative consequences for (the student’s) academic progress and career.”

Connell said he was also concerned that the article, written by a Prep student journalist, might be harmful to the reputation of the private Roman Catholic high school.

“Anything that’s going to be distributed to our students we are going to take a look at,” he said. “We are going to be sure it’s helpful to our students.”

Prep officials reportedly searched the student’s car for evidence of marijuana, but Connell declined to comment on the search.

The Vox is a regional high school newspaper written and edited by student journalists from area high schools. It’s published by The Spokesman-Review as part of a journalism education project that started last fall.

The Vox is circulated to most of the area’s high schools with the permission of school officials. Two high schools in the Central Valley School District do not allow circulation of the Vox because of a policy prohibiting in-school publications from private entities.

The issue of the Vox that circulated on Wednesday was its second.

Connell said he will continue to allow future editions of the Vox to be circulated and took no action to gather copies that had been obtained by students or staff before the removal of the remaining stack of papers.

The article carried the headline “Views on drug use vary with teens” and was accompanied by a photo illustration of a young person holding a multicolored pipe. The person could not be identified because the photo showed only the lower portion of the face.

The 17-year-old student was quoted as saying that he used marijuana to “see what all the hype was” and that if a student has the right connections, marijuana can be obtained “as easily as you could go to the store and buy a pie.”

The student wouldn’t be identified under The Spokesman-Review’s editorial policy, but the Vox has established policies independent of the daily newspaper’s.

Erin Daniels, a Spokesman-Review employee who oversees the Vox and is the coordinator of the newspaper’s high school journalism initiative, said she respects Prep’s right to remove copies of the Vox but also supports the student journalists in their efforts to cover stories that are relevant to them.

Daniels said she has encouraged the students to identify their sources in all of their stories. She also said the decisions about what stories to cover are made by teams of student reporters and editors.

Other Vox stories have examined dirty dancing, homeless teens, the war in Iraq, birth control and gay rights.

“I hope (Prep officials) don’t have problems with any future issues,” Daniels said.

Vox student news editor Tori Dykes, also a Prep student, echoed that sentiment, saying she hopes the drug-use story “doesn’t damage future relations with the Vox.”

Fletcher Morgan, the staff reporter and Prep student who wrote the story, said he wasn’t trying to hurt Prep’s image. He said the story was about drug use in general and quoted a student who happened to be from Prep. A second student quoted in the story was from Cheney High School.

“I was trying to be as careful as I could,” Morgan said.