High School Journalists Force Resignation With Their Real News

These teen journalists were assigned to do an introduction piece for their new principal Amy Robertson. After they did some investigating, however, their published article led to the principal’s resignation only days later.

The students working for the Booster Redux publication at Pittsburg High School in southeastern Kansas didn’t plan on outing Robertson as a phony when they started writing the piece. But once they started looking into her credentials, they discovered a lot of discrepancies.

After Robertson was appointed on March 6th, the students reached out to the principal in a conference call on March 16th. For starters, Robertson claimed to have received her master’s and doctorate degrees from Corllins University. When the young journalists tried to look up the school, they found that the Better Business Bureau had stated that Corllins was not BBB-accredited. Another resource said that “the physical address of Corllins was unknown”.

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Despite Robertson having claimed that she did most of her schoolwork online, she said she had still visited the Corllins campus in Stockton, California. A quick call to the City of Stockton’s Community Development Department told them that the school was essentially nonexistent. Robertson was also reportedly unable to provide a copy of her transcripts.

The students compiled this information along with their other findings into an article that was published in the Booster Redux on Friday. On Tuesday, Robertson handed in her resignation, which was accepted by the Pittsburg Community Schools’ Board of Education.

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The six students who put the article together were launched into the media limelight for their impressive reporting. The teens even got a shoutout from Todd Wallack of the Boston Globe Spotlight Team.

“I honestly thought they were joking at first,” 17-year-old Connor Balthazor told the Washington Post concerning the praise. “It was awesome to know that such respected members of the journalism community had our backs.”

The students were recognized and thanked by school officials for their thorough investigating. Though they may still be in high school, it seems pretty safe to say that this will look good on their resumes in the future.

(WATCH the video below)

 

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