Editor of St. Regis school newspaper sparks controversy with article

ST. REGIS - In the wake of Tammy Demien being placed on administrative leave from her duties as the principal of St. Regis School and the subsequent media and public attention given to the investigation, Jeron Jennings, editor of the St. Regis School newspaper, felt that he too should publish something regarding the case.

When his advisor turned down the idea for the article, Jennings said a "mixture of conscience and boredom" prompted him to continue with his plan to write and publish a piece regarding Demien.

"It’s something that needed to be heard," Jennings said. "Since I run a newspaper that is distributed to all of the people in the school – it should be articles that are relevant and affect the students and the teachers, so I felt it was something that really needed to be a part of the paper."

Jennings, along with two fellow student journalists, then began to plan how they would publish and distribute the school paper with the article in it.

"We printed two versions (of the paper)," Jennings said. "One with the article in it and one without. We made sure to not give the one with the article in it to any of the teachers because we didn’t want them to stop us before it got out."

Distribution of the article was successful according to Jennings, who added that several teachers who he had spoken to about the article prior to running it got a hold of the paper with the piece in it and "really liked it."

"One of them even called me a true journalist," Jennings said. "It was pretty positive (feedback) from everyone except the people who thought they should be offended by it."

The text of the article is primarily a recap of the events regarding Demien’s administrative leave – specifically the school board meeting at which Demien and her attorney Lance Jasper were present along with many members of the public to ask why she was placed on leave, as well as the affidavit Kassandra Perkins supplied to Jasper.

Jennings also gives his student perspective on the matter by beginning the article with, "all of the duties of the principal have been outsourced to other staff members, but this begs the question, what in the world happened to Ms. Demien," and concluding with his take on where the situation currently is.

"This situation continues to develop, or regress, depending on how you look at it," Jennings said. "It’s reached a point where few people remember still exactly what it was that sparked the controversy, and at this point it is mostly a lot of mud-slinging and finger-pointing. Which would be just groovy if these people were working at McDonalds, but they’re not. We are to look up to these people who jump behind soapboxes and spread lies the same way manipulative teenagers do, leaving us students to bury our heads in the sand, and wait for the day someone starts thinking of the kids first. All the smoke and mirrors have left a lot of facts in disarray, but one thing is clear: Saint Regis is currently lacking both principals and principles."

A week after the article ran, Jennings said he was called into Superintendent Janet Hanson’s office to discuss the unapproved article running in the paper.

Later in the day, Jennings was once again called into Hanson’s office where according to Jennings he was told, "the reason it was a problem was because I went around the system of the whole hierarchy and it wasn’t about the content of the article."

"I noted that we often run last minute changes, inserted images, etc. without having them approved by administration, and asked how this article was any different than for example, ‘Clip art of a bumble bee,’" Jennings wrote in an email to the Mineral Independent.

"She said she hadn’t received any complaints about a bumble bee and then asked me about my goals and whether or not I wanted to keep writing because I said if I couldn’t write articles that meant anything I didn’t want to be involved in this paper."

Jennings said the only formal consequences for the article are researching and giving a presentation on responsible journalism, however he hasn’t had to give the presentation yet.

In the meantime, Jennings said he is still frustrated over the situation that prompted him to write the article to begin with.

"There is a lot of hair pulling and teeth gritting because we haven’t got any answers," Jennings said. "What is more frustrating is the fact that we don’t have a principal and you hear about it in the papers and everything but nobody is saying anything (to the students) about why we don’t have a principal."