Students Publish Underground Paper

Taking aim at school administrators, “religious right-wing fanatics” and uniforms in public schools, a group of Simi Valley high school seniors on Wednesday distributed the second edition of an underground newspaper titled the Student Advocate.

The four-page, letter-size paper was passed out to about 1,500 students and staff at Royal High School before the first bell. Those involved--none of whom would allow their names to be used--said they planned to distribute another 1,000 copies at Simi Valley High School today and at junior high campuses on Friday.

One Royal High senior who worked on the paper said the purpose was “to educate students, to open their minds, to make them think a little bit.”

“We wanted to make them realize what’s happening in their district because a lot of students don’t read newspapers, don’t go to school board meetings,” the senior added.

The latest issue of the Student Advocate features a commentary attacking the idea of uniforms in public schools, a measure suggested by some members of a committee studying campus safety.

Another article satirizes the controversy over the California Learning Assessment System exam. And a full-page report card assigns up or down arrows to school board members and others, including a conservative parents group called Citizens for Truth in Education, according to their positions on a variety of issues.

The earlier April 8 edition of the Advocate blasted the city’s assignment of a Simi Valley police officer to patrol school campuses.

“It is very distressing to report that the schools in our district are becoming less and less of an educational estate and . . . more and more of a police state,” the paper said.

School board member Diane Collins said the students should be praised and not penalized for their activism.

“I think those kids are really bright,” she said. “We should be proud of them.”

A district administrator, Leslie Crunelle, said she had not seen a copy of the paper distributed Wednesday. But she said the earlier edition violated no school policies and was protected by free speech.

“There was nothing--as I recall--that was libelous, slanderous or obscene,” she said.