Budget Cuts May Silence School’s Voice

From its first issue in 1898, when it billed itself as “The Journal of School News and Athletics,” to the newspaper’s latest edition last week, students at Lowell High School have always anticipated the moment The Lowell rolls off the press.

Informative, entertaining, and at times thought-provoking, the oldest continuously published high school newspaper in the West is also the unofficial historian of this magnet high school in San Francisco’s Sunset District.

But the familiar sensation of unfolding a freshly printed copy of the paper during homeroom class may soon become part of the same history The Lowell so faithfully chronicled. After more than 90 years of publication, school officials, under pressure to make deep cuts in their budget, are considering ending The Lowell’s press run.

“We have a sense of history here that few other schools have,” said journalism adviser Peter Hammer, who has been told he may lose his job. “If we don’t record it, we’ll lose it.”

Famous Lowell newspaper alumni include former Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown Sr., veteran journalist Pierre Salinger and illustrator Rube Goldberg. Today’s Lowell staff members are ambitious, too, such as editor Maya Voskoboynikov, who is busy overseeing what may be The Lowell’s final issue. Without a student newspaper, she said, “things would be terrible.”

“The students here need it,” said the senior, who plans to attend UC Berkeley. “We inform them of the things that go on here. I think it’s really necessary that we have a newspaper.”

Besides, she said, without the Lowell, “there would be no Pierre Salinger.”

Perhaps. But in the end, there may be no Lowell newspaper without Salinger. The former press secretary to President John F. Kennedy was a managing editor at The Lowell from 1940-41. Now a chief foreign correspondent for ABC News in London, he said he may try to help if efforts to save the student paper fail.

“It was a real significant newspaper,” said Salinger, who expects to return to San Francisco for a 50-year class reunion in August. “I would hope that a private group or someone would step in and set up a fund to save it. If there’s still hope (when I come back), I’ll do something.”

So far, interest in salvaging The Lowell has been limited. Officials say two local companies have asked the school how much it would cost to save the newspaper. While a donation might keep The Lowell afloat for a while, the cash-strapped San Francisco Unified School District must make $20 million in budget cuts.

“Not to trivialize The Lowell newspaper, but we’re making horrendous reductions here,” said Robert Golton, district director of fiscal services. “Everywhere you look we are making cuts. It’s devastating.”

Budget officials say they labored through long administrative meetings to decide who and what must go. The final decision was called the most democratic: Send layoff notices to every staff member hired before 1984 who did not have seniority.

Hammer, in his third year as an instructor, got his notice last month, and is expecting a final letter sealing his fate May 15. Even if he is rehired, The Lowell’s issues might still be numbered.

A proposal before the school board would limit the maximum class load for freshmen and sophomores to five and for juniors and seniors to six--just enough to graduate on time with the basic requirements.

Interest in the journalism classes--which may be cut from five to three--would dwindle, shrinking the newspaper’s staff and resources. Administrators have told Hammer that they would not support a mediocre publication even if there is enough money to publish.

Such a loss, besides depriving students of their school news, would destroy a tradition. “The paper ties the entire school together,” said Paul Lucey, Lowell’s archivist and executive director of the school’s alumni association. “Without a paper, the school would be much less than it is today. It would be a disaster.”

To The Lowell’s political editor, Calvin So, a school without a newspaper is equally unthinkable. A senior who also plans to attend UC Berkeley this fall, he is a second-semester veteran of the student publication, which he calls “absolutely the best.”

“We put in a lot of work and we spend a lot of time here,” he said. “The other student papers aren’t as professional-looking as ours. I just can’t imagine a school without a newspaper. It’s been here for so long.”

Neither can former Gov. Brown, who contributed articles to The Lowell from 1919 to 1923. “It was a very good newspaper, and I always looked forward to reading it,” he said. “I think this is a tragedy.”

At Lowell High School, journalism has evolved into more than just an extracurricular pastime, said Jack Anderson, chairman of the visual and performing arts department.

“The journalism kids are admired along with the popular jocks and the scientists,” he said. “They’ve done some impressive investigative reporting, far beyond their years, and they’ve gotten recognized for it.”

In nine decades of publication, The Lowell has collected an impressive number of awards. Last year, it received an award from the National Scholastic Press Assn. and a medal from the Columbia Scholastic Press Assn. This year, the staff hopes to overcome their archrival, The Epitaph, a student newspaper at Homestead High School in Cupertino, to win a regional trophy.

“Without The Lowell,” said Anderson, “I don’t think you can fully understand the history of San Francisco or the Bay Area.”