Personal Narrative

Walking into school, my phone lit up with an electric blue glow. Message from Emily: Have you heard?

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Immediately intrigued, I barely had time for a glance before a security guard’s bellow — “Keep it moving” — snapped me back to reality. But even that fragment of a text was enough to make my pulse race. Emily was a teacher, one of my most trusted sources, and if she was texting this early, something was up. By the time I reached the newsroom, I had the full picture: all sixteen assistant principals and deans at my school were told to reapply for their jobs. And the person behind that decision? Mr. Murphy. My principal. My mentor.

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The story practically wrote itself. But it wasn’t just a story. It was my school, my principal, my community. In my tenure as a journalist, I’d learned the rules — objectivity, balance, fairness. But inside a high school, conflicts of interest are inescapable. I had worked closely with Mr. Murphy for years to address equity issues in our school. Now I was about to write a piece that could fundamentally shift how students and staff saw him.

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Still, I got straight to work setting up interviews. But, “Sorry, James, I can’t talk about it,” was all I got back. Over and over and over. Teachers and administrators — the people students trusted most — were too afraid to speak.

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Finally, after some convincing, one of them agreed to talk to me anonymously. As I walked into Mr. Caddel’s office, he shut the door behind us. “Here’s the deal,” he said, his eyes welling. “A lot of us won’t be coming back next year.”

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By the end of our hour-and-a-half-long conversation, my notebook held the basics:

• The school was switching to an “academy” learning model.

• With six academies, they only needed six assistant principals, so four people would lose their jobs.

• They were making up for the lost positions by adding four deans. But deans get paid less.

• Administrators had three weeks to decide whether to reapply. Most were furious. None felt safe saying so.

The last part nagged me. Silence. Why? I’d had reluctant interviewees before, but nothing came close to this. I began digging.

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Fifteen sources, dozens of interviews, and ninety-three pages in a Google Doc later, I had my answer. “There’s a culture of fear here,” staff told me. The district, they said, demanded “silence and compliance.” It was the first time anyone had spoken about it publicly. I knew I had an explosive story.

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But was it ready for print? Before I could hit “publish,” doubt crept in. Many of my sources were critical of Mr. Murphy. Would this ruin our relationship? Would it jeopardize our ability to work together to reach disadvantaged students? 

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The first thing I learned in Journalism 1 was that it’s a reporter’s duty to minimize harm. Would publishing this piece do more harm than good? I considered every angle. But then I thought back to Mr. Caddel’s trembling hands. I thought about the teachers who had put their jobs on the line to share their truths. And I remembered another core tenet of journalism: be accountable. I pressed “publish.”

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What happened next was a blur. Of course, there was the initial high of publishing — the whirlpool of adrenaline as my article racked up tens of thousands of views on social media, got republished in the city newspaper, and became Theogony’s most-read article. But I am most proud that the wall of silence began to crack. For the first time, teachers, students, parents, even community members, started talking — about the principles we stand for, the fears that keep us silent, and the forces that shape power in our school system.

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In a turbulent and unrelenting world, journalism is my way of shining a light on the truth. And while the truth can be complicated, nuanced, and even disappointing, I will continue to voice it for as long as there are stories left to tell.