I and my Associate Editor, Bianca Pugliesi, have been researching, interviewing FOIAing and writing and editing a piece on the culture at Grosse Pointe South High school, how it has changed over the years and why for the past few months. We have written several drafts of the story and had the Student Press Law Center, Jeremy Steele and several advisers read through it to make sure it is legally sound and professional. This article is terrifying our administration, at the school and district level, and our principal has given our adviser a really hard time ever since he found out we were writing about it. The community is talking about the piece, there are teachers who are thanking us for writing this story, because a big part of it is the relationship between staff and administration, and students and administration-- the good and the bad. We wrote this story because we felt a change in the atmosphere at South, and that is what everyone else was talking about as well. There was a big change in the way it felt to be at school, and students could tell the relationship between teachers and administrators was turning toward one of fear and discomfort.

We submitted a FOIA request and received the anonymous Employee Engagement Surveys each staff member fills out at the end of each year for the district. We conducted our own completely anonymous staff survey this year and community survey. We interviewed over 30 students, current and previous staff members, alumn, administrators at the district and school level and parents. We have balanced and diverse sourcing, facts and data and any claims our sources have made against administration-- such as when several sources and surveys said administration does not conduct staff evaluations properly and several parts of the evaluations seem random and/or punitive-- we have directly asked about and received responses about. Many of our interviews have been over an hour long, most of them have been uncomfortable, but we have learned to work with sources and be professional. This has been the largest piece I have ever worked on, and I am incredibly proud of all the hard work we have put into it.

Instead of rushing the story to submit it for this MIPA deadline, after we got feedback on our first few drafts, we decided to prolong the story further to get more interviews and ensure the piece is foolproof before it is published. Writing the piece, putting all of the information we have gained on the record into a sequence that is fair and helps the reader understand the main focus of the story has been extraordinarily difficult. This entire experience has tested and improved my journalism skills more than anything else could have, and has taught me countless valuable life lessons.