Stevenson High releases e-mails in school newspaper controversy

Following a legal opinion from the Illinois attorney general's office, Stevenson High School officials this week released the contents of 15 e-mails sought by the Daily Herald as part of a larger Freedom of Information Act request.

The newspaper requested these and other e-mails in January while the Lincolnshire school's administration and students were embroiled in a fight over the Statesman student newspaper that eventually led many staffers to quit.

The newly released e-mails - some of which remain slightly censored to protect the identities of students or community members - were mostly benign. A few contained interview requests from student journalists; one concerned the wording of minutes for a meeting of the school's Patriot Parent Association, which had discussed the controversy.

But some of the e-mails were barbed.

In a Nov. 23 e-mail, then-Principal Janet Gonzalez - who has since retired - told an attorney representing the students at the heart of the controversy that a planned meeting with the teens and their parents "will not occur with you in attendance."

In another e-mail, a correspondent whose name remains censored by the district told Superintendent Eric Twadell that the students had voted to quit the journalism class and close the Statesman.

"Is there a paper left to fight for?" the person wrote. "Please don't let the shutdown of the Statesman be a part of your legacy to Stevenson."

Despite the e-mail writer's implication, the newspaper continued to publish.

Another e-mail, also from a sender whose identity remains secret, passionately asked the Statesman advisers to "stand up for the kids" and help them publish a paper the students can learn from and "be proud of."

The battle over the Statesman began in January 2009 when a story about teen sex led to more administration oversight. A few months later, Barbara Thill left her post as the newspaper's adviser.

In November 2009, publication of that month's issue was blocked by administrators because of content objections. School officials later forced students to publish the issue without two stories that had raised concerns.

An article was pulled from the December issue, too.

The next month, the Daily Herald sought copies of e-mails between board members and top administrators regarding the Statesman controversy. E-mails are considered public record under Illinois' Freedom of Information Act.

Citing exceptions to the law, Stevenson officials gave the Daily Herald hundreds of pages with large sections electronically censored. In many cases, entire messages were blacked out.

The attorney general's public access counselor's office, which oversees Freedom of Information Act disputes, later reviewed the request and the documents in question.

In a July 1 letter sent to Stevenson's attorney and the Daily Herald, the office said the district acted legally in censoring some e-mails to protect privileged conversations or the identities of students and other community members.

However, the counselor's office said the school overstepped its legal bounds by extensively editing some e-mails. Only portions that linked comments to specific people should've been redacted, the counselor's office said.

Additionally, school officials should not have entirely withheld the contents of e-mails between the school's attorneys and the lawyers representing students in the dispute, the office said.

Those opinions led district officials to release the contents of the 15 e-mail records this week. Other sought-after e-mails will remain private to protect student records or because they contained drafts of public statements, wrote the district's attorney Heidi A. Katz.