High School Confidential: An 'Eagle Eye' on Dallas

By: Miki Johnson The Eagle Eye newspaper ran a package in November 2004 revealing half-truths, misrepresentation of statistics, and funding misuse at DeSoto High School in suburban Dallas. In the midst of heated attacks from the board and community, the concerns raised by these stories and follow-ups helped persuade the DeSoto school board to kill an ill-advised $700,000 program. It's a story that should give hope to those lamenting the death of hard-nosed investigative journalism ? especially since the Eagle Eye is the DeSoto High School's own student-run paper.

The four students who contributed to the initial package and their faculty advisor received the 2005 Courage in Student Journalism Awards in mid-November at a ceremony in Chicago. Editor Eric Gentry and advisor Carol Richtsmeier accepted the two $5,000 awards, given by the Newseum, the Student Press Law Center, and the National Scholastic Press Association to middle and high school journalists and advisors who defend and advance press freedom against difficult challenges.

The saga began in November 2004 when the DeSoto school board approved $65,000 for an assessment of gang-related activity at the school by Project JAMS (Just Another Means of Success). Based on the group's findings, the board would then consider another $700,000 for Project JAMS to remedy the problem. The newspaper staff's first response to the JAMS proposal was, "What gang problem?"

"The kids determined it was a story if we had a gang problem we didn't know about, and it was a story if there wasn't a problem," Richtsmeier remembers. "I told them to follow it wherever it went."

Gentry, along with fellow award recipients Whitney Basil, Zack Kroh, and Jeremy Willis, assembled a package for Page One and a pull-out section investigating claims by Project JAMS founder Amon Rashidi and the program's possible effects on the school.

When the special section uncovered discrepancies in Rashidi's claims and highlighted how poorly the cash-strapped district could afford the superfluous program, members of the school board and community came after the newspaper staff.

At the next board meeting ? where the Eagle Eye ironically was recognized for winning journalism awards ? Rashidi spent most of his time defending himself and attacking the paper. Gentry recalls that people at the meeting suggested removing Richtsmeier as advisor and cutting the newspaper's funding.

Although the Eagle Eye's staffers were occasionally surprised by the vehemence, they knew from the beginning their coverage would stir up unpleasant feelings. Once he realized his story would show that Rashidi had lied to the school board, Gentry had a moment of doubt.

"It occurred to me that I held his livelihood in my hands," Gentry says.

The story would jeopardize Richtsmeier's livelihood too, as she frankly told Gentry and Kroh before urging them to run the package anyway.

"I tried to remind them that, as journalists, one role they had was to be a watchdog for the public ? a role most journalists took very seriously," Richtsmeier says. "If there ever was a hill to die on, this would be it, as far as I was concerned."

Richtsmeier left DeSoto following the JAMS controversy, citing ongoing attempts by the school board to restrict the Eagle Eye's free press rights. She now serves as publication adviser and journalism teacher at nearby Midlothian High School, where her new student staff put out its first paper on Oct. 21.

While Richtsmeier laments that her room at DeSoto no longer is a "place to come back to" for the students she taught there for 15 years, Gentry is glad she has gone somewhere she is better appreciated. "Really the reason she's winning the teacher award ? is because she was such an inspiration and role model to us," Gentry explains. "And because she's the one who took a lot of the flak."