Welcome to our series, The School Dispatch! This column will spotlight different students from across the commonwealth, each edition giving someone the opportunity to share the good, bad, and the ugly of what’s going on in their school or district. From unique events, to new trends, to causes of complaint, this series will show readers what Kentucky’s schools look like from a student’s lens.

By Gage Van Leuven, Casey County

Recently, a group of students at Casey County Middle School founded the Weekly Journal, a student-led, community-funded print newspaper. In the past, I have done some work with other student journalism groups. I took the reins as publisher and started putting together a staff, a wonderful team of independent journalists who work hard to produce a quality paper every week. 

We have found that students appreciate this opportunity to have communities of their own working on a student newspaper, especially since the school-sponsored one, CCMS Rebel Report, isn’t printed weekly. I’d previously launched a different student-led newspaper, The HomeRoom Times, and through that experience, learned crucial information about writing and managing news, such as grammar and style. TWJ is independent from the school district, and we’re currently publishing version 5.

Students working on TWJ typically cover diverse stories, from 1,000-word stories about Eminem to stories about the Cold War. Diversity is a strength, not a weakness, and with TWJ, we work to represent students of different sexualities, genders, experiences, interests, and backgrounds. We see different stories from each writer, and with their combined experiences, we make a good product each week. We are proud of our stories and different experiences.

Our editor-in-chief, Braedyn Watson, currently publishes an “Eminem” series on different aspects of his discography. We have a logistics and Arts & Culture columnist, Sebastian Weston, who started writing for us recently and helps us get papers where they need to go, as we are a print publication, and newspapers have to be distributed. We have many other staff members, each one a member of the general student community, who are advocates for our mission of promoting student voices and publishing an informative and entertaining paper.

Best of all, we see the community look at each page and really appreciate each story. Students feel better when they see themselves and others given a voice to speak out. Student voice, finding outputs for student opinions and student news, has been an amazing experience to have been leading in Casey County. 

The Weekly Journal is a united group of students. We aren't just a group of students that happen to be friends; we are united as a front for the expansion of students’ rights. The Weekly Journal makes it a point to ask questions about student press freedoms.

Teacher advocates and the Student Press Law Center truly support us. The SPLC has provided resources when it comes to communication with school administration and knowing student press rights. Teachers, such as Ms. Allen at CCMS, have helped us speak with administrators and have been supportive of our work.

This dedicated, hardworking, and wonderful staff has really built something for us at The Weekly Journal, and will stand by it for versions to come. Everyone should support both local student and professional journalism in their communities. 

A version of this story previously appeared in The Weekly Journal.