← Snap Judgment
Snap Judgment
School Daze: The Sleuthers
00:49:30
A team of high school students investigate a new hire at their school. What they discover leads them towards an all out battle for the truth.
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- [00:03]
Glenn Washington
Snap Studios. Snap Judgment is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available if you in all states Tis the season you've been waiting for. Fall sports are back and Whole Foods Market has everything you need to host a delicious game day party. Fill your cooler with frosty beverages. Oktoberfest beers are in Play. Must be 21 plus. Please drink responsibly and don't forget non alcoholic brews from Athletic Brewing Co. So everybody has a great time. May the good guys win. Host game day with help from Whole Foods Market. In high school, I wanted to fight back against the man. The man was our principal. White shirt, blue suit, no nonsense. And our principal, like principals in every film you've ever seen, didn't take kindly to the likes of someone like me. Always talking about, you're skating on thin ice, mister. Thin ice. Because I was all about the nonsense, the foolishness, the devilment. I just wanted to be me man, you know, Principal said He followed me around, driving me crazy. I always imagined that he was the center of some global conspiracy out to subvert emerging leaders of tomorrow. Singled me out from their headquarters in New York. Turns out that he was just a nice dude trying to keep things moving. But what if there really was a high school conspiracy? What if the man really was out to get you? Well, today on Snap Judgment, class is back in the second episode of the new Snap series, School Days. Episode two the Sleuthers. My name is Glenn Washington. Tater tots are back on the menu when you're listening the Snap Judgment. Our story takes us to the mean streets of Pittsburgh, Kansas, small town right on the border of Missouri and Oklahoma. In this small town there was a small group of high school students writing a small newspaper for their school. And one day the students come across some information that kinda sorta maybe could be a big story. Shayna Shealy takes us there. Snap Judgment.
- [03:39]
Narrator/Reporter
It all started in March of 2016. A junior at Pittsburgh High. Maddie walked past the cafeteria, past the gym and into a room that opened into a garage that used to be used for an auto shop class.
- [03:56]
Maddie
It was just like this huge back room that just had a like a bunch of random stuff back there.
- [04:03]
Narrator/Reporter
There were rolling chairs and old newspapers. Maddie sat down in front of a big whiteboard with her co editors of the booster Redux. And they parsed out their assignments for the week.
- [04:14]
Maddie
It was definitely fun. Like, newspaper was known as, like, the favorite class of the day.
- [04:19]
Narrator/Reporter
Maddy's task interview, the incoming new principal, Amy Robertson, which she was kind of nervous about.
- [04:26]
Maddie
I felt like it was one of my bigger assignments. Everyone's gonna want to know who our new principal's going to be, and so it's going to be my job to present her to our students and to the community.
- [04:43]
Narrator/Reporter
Maddie was on the dance team and student council. Her three older siblings had also written for the school paper.
- [04:50]
Maddie
My siblings were editors too, and so I thought it would just be cool to also follow in their footsteps.
- [04:55]
Narrator/Reporter
Maddie found a quiet place in the newspaper classroom and called up her future principal, Dr. Amy Robertson.
- [05:01]
Maddie
She just sounded very excited to talk to me and I was just excited. I was like, oh, this is gonna be my new principal. Like, oh, they wanna make sure it sound professional and make a good impression so that she knows me and enjoys the paper.
- [05:19]
Narrator/Reporter
Maddie asked about Robertson's education, her professional experience.
- [05:24]
Maddie
What are your goals for the school as a new principal? What do you want the students to know about?
- [05:29]
Narrator/Reporter
Amy Robertson told Maddie that she was living in Dubai, where she had started a school. She had a PhD in English, and she was excited to get started at Pittsburgh High School. Her flight from Dubai to Kansas was in April, less than a month away.
- [05:48]
Maddie
I felt pretty confident that I had answers to all of my questions.
- [05:54]
Narrator/Reporter
The interview was short.
- [05:56]
Maddie
Yeah, very casual.
- [05:58]
Narrator/Reporter
The next day, Maddie went back to the newspaper room to transcribe the interview. Maddie paused when she got to the part of the interview where the future principal talked about her education.
- [06:11]
Maddie
Been like typing that. She went to Corylands.
- [06:13]
Narrator/Reporter
Two other editors, Gina and Callie, were sitting with Maddy and we were like.
- [06:16]
Callie
Huh, Never heard of that.
- [06:17]
Narrator/Reporter
Callie was a junior. She joined the paper because Maddie, her best friend, was doing it. And now they typed Corlens University into a search engine and they clicked on the Corlens website and we were like, oh, whoa.
- [06:31]
Maddie
There just really wasn't a lot of information on the website like you would find at, like a normal university's website.
- [06:38]
Narrator/Reporter
The site was a single page with all these broken links and a string of payment options on the bottom.
- [06:43]
Maddie
We were both were like, oh, again, that's kind of like a red flag. Like, where is this place? Like, does this place even exist? We brought it to our advisor, Emily Smith.
- [07:02]
Narrator/Reporter
Emily Smith's newspaper class was coveted at Pittsburgh High. She basically built it up from scratch. And now class had an application and a wait list. Her Students called her Smith. And Smith encouraged her students to write stories that meant something. They once wrote about how the cafeteria was overcrowded at lunchtime and they changed the lunch structure. They wrote about a classmate who had died in a car crash and students who were treating nude photos. These stories were recognized as two of the best high school newspaper stories in the whole country.
- [07:40]
Emily Smith
We weren't specifically trying to be edgy about stuff. You know, we just focused on good storytelling.
- [07:49]
Narrator/Reporter
So when Maddie came to her for advice on what to do about this mysterious detail from her interview with the.
- [07:55]
Emily Smith
Future principal, I coached Maddie on how to politely, you know, like, could you just answer these three follow up questions?
- [08:05]
Maddie
So I'm just going to read you what I said to her, said, Hi, Dr. Robertson, I had a couple more questions that I wanted to ask you about. The first one is about the universities you attended. Could you tell me what universities you went to get all of your degrees?
- [08:19]
Narrator/Reporter
Maddie hit send and went off to volunteer at a blood drive. When she checked her phone later, she saw that Amy Robertson had responded to her email, but not in the way she'd expected.
- [08:31]
Maddie
I definitely just like, pause and I think, like, get like a little, like, lightheaded. Just kind of freeze it and, like, hold my breath. And I'm like, oh, no. Like, what have I done? And I'm just kind of like, in.
- [08:46]
Narrator/Reporter
Maddie went to Smith and showed her the email. Smith was struck by the last sentence.
- [08:53]
Emily Smith
I am forwarding all of our correspondence to Superintendent Destry Brown because he ultimately has the final say in what goes in the school newspaper. I thought, wow. I remember laughing and saying, he doesn't have final say of what goes in the newspaper. And welcome to Kansas.
- [09:16]
Narrator/Reporter
Welcome to Kansas. As in, welcome to one of the few states in the country where students have free speech protections similar to professional journalists.
- [09:28]
Emily Smith
That last sentence is like, burned into my brain because I was like, why? Why would you flip like this on this kid when they're asking such basic questions? And so in the back of my mind, I'm just kind of like, fermenting on this. Despite what everybody thinks, I'm really, deep down, I am a rule follower. And so I got a little stressed and I contacted my union rep and.
- [09:57]
Narrator/Reporter
The two scheduled a meeting with the school's superintendent, Destry Brown.
- [10:03]
Emily Smith
And he said, don't worry about it. It's all fine. I got her transcripts today. Everything's fine. And I'm like, great.
- [10:17]
Narrator/Reporter
This was a moment where Smith could have trusted Brown and set this whole thing aside, gone on with her life. But when she got back to her newspaper classroom, the editors who had been working on Maddy's story wanted to know what was going on, why Robertson's credentials seemed questionable. Smith still couldn't give them an answer. So she pulled the editing team into the newspaper room. Maddie told them about her exchange with Dr. Robertson, and Smith told them what she knew or didn't know about Corlands.
- [10:47]
Gina
I turned to Maddy and I was like, is this the same principal that's coming in to teach us? Like, are we okay? What's going on?
- [10:54]
Narrator/Reporter
Gina was one of the co editors in that huddle. She was also a star of the speech and debate team. She helped lead national Honor Society. She was in Spanish Club in the.
- [11:03]
Gina
Rat race of high school.
- [11:05]
Narrator/Reporter
Smith left the room to deal with the other students lined up at her desk. And together they decided to do a deep dive into Robertson's education. The editors pulled out their computers. They typed in Corlens University.
- [11:19]
Gina
None of us had heard of it, and obviously we were, like, 18 years old. We hadn't heard of a lot of universities.
- [11:24]
Narrator/Reporter
Trina was the only senior on the editing team. She loved writing. She played tennis, and had a lot of thoughts on politics and the world. When she typed Corlens into Google, the.
- [11:36]
Gina
First words that popped up were like, diploma mills.
- [11:40]
Narrator/Reporter
Diploma mill. A business that presents itself as a legit educational institution where you can get a degree that might not be legit.
- [11:50]
Maddie
And I think that we were just like, what.
- [11:59]
Narrator/Reporter
That same class period. Maddie got Another email from Dr. Robertson. This one had a bunch of attachments, a pamphlet about Robertson's business as an educational consultant, and contracts with redacted names of her clients. Gina downloaded the documents and saw that the redactions were simply black highlights.
- [12:19]
Gina
And we realized we could just change the color of the highlight and it revealed the information that was redacted. And to me, that was just part of the, like, tech savviness of our age, again, of, like, just growing up in this digital world. Like, to us, that was a security check that was not, like, difficult to get through.
- [12:48]
Narrator/Reporter
When they started searching for those clients, they couldn't find any proof that they'd existed at all. When they searched the school she started in Dubai, they told me that it got shut down for violating regulations.
- [13:00]
Gina
And then we just. We did, like, a simple reverse Google image search.
- [13:04]
Narrator/Reporter
They searched the images that Robertson had included on the pamphlet about her business.
- [13:08]
Gina
And they were just stock images.
- [13:09]
Narrator/Reporter
The students found that Robertson had used pictures of a graduation ceremony at Juilliard on her pamphlet. They also Found that some of the descriptions were taken from existing websites.
- [13:20]
Gina
There were clearly aspects of her, like, resume or some of the materials that were shared with us that were, like, plagiarized. We're kind of like, how could someone have missed this? And I do think that there was kind of like a tentativeness because we're all fairly young and it just seemed like a mistake that could have been caught relatively quickly. It was just like a very odd situation for us to be in, given that we were like teenagers.
- [13:56]
Narrator/Reporter
When Smith got back to the classroom.
- [13:58]
Emily Smith
The girls are in it enough that, like, they know that there's something going on. We're talking like, this was maybe like 45 minutes or an hour, because this is like one class period. I remember I stuck my head in the other room and I was looking at all the newspaper staff students, like, who can help them with this stuff?
- [14:16]
Narrator/Reporter
Smith looked around the newspaper classroom and her eyes landed on two juniors, Patrick and Connor.
- [14:24]
Connor
I was probably sitting there doing very little of importance at that point.
- [14:28]
Narrator/Reporter
Connor got into journalism because he liked the idea of sports writing and a classroom where you didn't have to stay in one seat the whole time. Smith called him over to the editor's huddle in the garage room.
- [14:41]
Connor
Everybody's kind of hunched over around the desk and like, kind of filled us in on what was going on.
- [14:47]
Narrator/Reporter
Smith got these sick students excused from their classes for the rest of the morning, and they came up with a plan to find out as much information as they could about Corlins and Robertson's background. First, Connor looked at the address for Corlens University on Google Street View.
- [15:10]
Connor
The address that we had was like a factory or like a warehouse or something like that.
- [15:17]
Narrator/Reporter
Then Gina left a request with the city of Stockton to call her. It's where Corlins was registered.
- [15:23]
Gina
And when my phone rang, I, like, rushed into this back, back room and was like, pressed up against some filing cabinets. I was like, hello? I explained that I was a student journalist looking into Corlens University. And she looked through her records and she said, I'm not finding anything. Do you know who told you this information? As in, was I getting false information to give her? And I said, oh, no, I just wanted to confirm, has there ever been a Corlens University and stuff? Stockton, California? And she said, not to my records. I opened the door, I rushed out of that side room and was eager to share what I'd found. Just to add to our collective fact finding process.
- [16:21]
Connor
That was kind of like, this is actually getting kind of real moment.
- [16:32]
Gina
It was just one thing after another. One call, one Google search. One, you know, contradiction led to another. And we, in our shared doc, were just putting comments on the sides.
- [16:52]
Emily Smith
By lunchtime, they knew they had enough information to know that, like, something was really wrong. And I said, what do you want to do? You can write the story. You can talk to the superintendent. You can pretend it never happened. What do you want to do? And they talked about it for a long time, and they said, we think we need to tell the superintendent.
- [17:23]
Narrator/Reporter
Robertson was supposed to get to Kansas in just a few weeks, and the students worried that if they didn't share their findings with the school superintendent, then other people would.
- [17:33]
Maddie
Like, if us high school students found this, like, think about what other parents or families are going to find.
- [17:40]
Narrator/Reporter
So Smith arranged the meeting, and a few days later, Superintendent Brown came down to the newspaper classroom with boxes of pepperoni pizzas.
- [17:49]
Gina
When he walked in and sat down in front of us, the room was very quiet.
- [17:54]
Emily Smith
They had all the pages printed out.
- [17:57]
Maddie
We had, like, all of the documents, like, out on the table.
- [18:01]
Gina
And so someone slid some papers over to him across the wooden desk.
- [18:09]
Maddie
Like, have you seen this? Can you, like, tell us about this?
- [18:13]
Narrator/Reporter
Superintendent Brown looked through the documents that called Corland's diploma mill.
- [18:19]
Gina
At the end of looking through the few papers, he sort of nodded.
- [18:23]
Callie
We told him all these things, and he's like, no worries.
- [18:26]
Maddie
He pretty much just said, like, I've seen you done your research, but you just kind of have to, like, trust us and, like, and know that she's gonna be the principal.
- [18:43]
Emily Smith
And I remember when he left, how silent it was, and the way everybody was just looking at each other like, this did not go the way they thought it was gonna go.
- [18:51]
Callie
You know, he left, and we were pissed that he's, like, gonna bring us pizza and then pretend like everything's fine. Because we wanted to be believed, and we also wanted it taken off our.
- [19:03]
Narrator/Reporter
Superintendent Brown suggested that if the students still had questions, they should sit down and interview their future principal, Dr. Robertson. When Maddie got home that day and told her parents about what had happened, they seemed kind of freaked out.
- [19:18]
Maddie
Like, I think you guys should, like, leave this to somebody else. Like, I don't think it's like, you guys should be doing it.
- [19:25]
Narrator/Reporter
But Maddie couldn't let it go.
- [19:27]
Maddie
I think just I had, like, this started to have this weird feeling of, like, she really just does not sound like who she says she is. Like, I was just scared of, like, what maybe could have happened to the school. Like, if we have someone that comes in as our principal and lies about things. She's not gonna be that authority person that is able to make our school run the way it.
- [20:12]
Glenn Washington
With all these lies and deceptions, what will the students decide to do? Find out right after the break. Foreign this podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or you're scaling your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, to showcase your offerings, to grow your brand, and to get paid all in one place. And no one knows like I know. When you're launching your bootstrap enterprise, your business, your nonprofit, your thing, you don't get to hire a big team of graphic and user interface professionals. No, you got to do it yourself. And with Squarespace's collection of cutting edge design tools, anyone can build an online presence that perfectly fits their brand or their business. Start with Blueprint AI, Squarespace's AI Enhanced Website Builder to get a fully customized website in just a few steps. Intuitive drag and drop editing, Beautiful styling options. Check out squarespace.com snap for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use offer code SNAP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Okay, so I put money in the bank. Alright, it's there. Then I go to pay my bills with the money I put in the bank. And there's all kinds of bank fees they come talking about. The requisite time frame of the deposit was not met, necessitating various charges. What? No more. See, Chime understands that every dollar counts. That's why when you set up direct deposit through Chime, you get access to fee free features like free overdraft coverage, getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit and more. Open a checking account with no monthly fees and no maintenance fees. Not to mention access to over 47,000 fee free ATMs, more than the top three national banks combined. Work on your financial goals through Chime. Today open an account@chime.com snap that's chime.com snap Chime feels like progress.
- [22:38]
Gina
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- [23:05]
Glenn Washington
Welcome back to Snap Judgment School days the Sleuthers episode. When we left, the students were questioning their new principal. They were nervous about what the new hire might mean for their school.
- [23:20]
Narrator/Reporter
So over the next few days, these six newspaper students prepared their questions.
- [23:25]
Maddie
Like, how can we best ask them in a way that's not like accusing? And how we can, because, again, we're high schoolers.
- [23:34]
Gina
It was sort of the one opportunity we had to either verify or nullify our findings. And we were going into it with the expectation that there was going to be essentially truth that was laid out in this meeting.
- [23:59]
Narrator/Reporter
Finally, it was March 16th. The interview was that morning. The students took their seats in an.
- [24:05]
Callie
Empty classroom, and we had her interview pulled up on the computer, which was then projected onto the whiteboard. And we're like, sitting in this arc just with our questions ready.
- [24:16]
Narrator/Reporter
They were armed with facts and a.
- [24:18]
Gina
Shared Google Doc, so it felt like we were bracing for impact to really be point blank about these concerns.
- [24:28]
Narrator/Reporter
And then Superintendent Brown walked in and sat in the front of the room while an IT guy was getting Skype set up to start the call. Brown told the students, hey, I'm gonna.
- [24:40]
Maddie
Be the one who is leading this interview. It wasn't what we had planned. We were gonna be the ones that were leading it.
- [24:52]
Narrator/Reporter
Smith was in the back just sweating.
- [24:55]
Emily Smith
They're looking at me to make sure things are okay. So, like, I'm trying to reassure them, like, it's gonna be okay. You guys have done nothing wrong.
- [25:06]
Narrator/Reporter
Smith recorded the entire meeting.
- [25:14]
Connor
Hi, Amy. How are you today?
- [25:17]
Gina
Oh, good. I can see you, but no movement.
- [25:20]
Narrator/Reporter
Okay, Superintendent Brown takes the lead.
- [25:25]
Connor
Let's talk about Corlands.
- [25:30]
Emily Smith
In 90, I graduated 94 with the.
- [25:33]
Narrator/Reporter
MA and in 2010, Robertson starts explaining the process she went through to get her degree accredited in the United Arab emirates.
- [25:40]
Gina
It costs $1,500. That's what each degree costs to be authenticated. Smith was saying in our running doc, in the side comments, she's like, be assertive. Be assertive. Ask this question. Ask this question. Just trying to really encourage us as students to, like, use our voices. Because it felt like we were disempower that moment.
- [26:03]
Narrator/Reporter
Nearly half an hour in, and the students haven't asked a single question until.
- [26:08]
Connor
Finally, Connor's going to ask you a question about Cortlands. You said you took a few classes on the campus of Cortlands. Where was the campus at?
- [26:16]
Gina
Yeah, I just answered that. Dr. California, is there a website that we can look at for that information? I'm sure there is.
- [26:28]
Narrator/Reporter
Trina pushes back.
- [26:29]
Gina
Whenever I look it up, I can't find an address in Stockton, California. There's no physical address. There's just maybe like one Facebook page and that's it. I don't know. I just said I haven't. I haven't been back. I haven't talked to anybody there in seven years.
- [26:49]
Narrator/Reporter
Connor asks, if you haven't been in contact with them, how do you get your transcripts?
- [26:55]
Gina
My transcripts were sent to me when I graduated in 2010.
- [26:59]
Connor
Is that standard practice?
- [27:01]
Narrator/Reporter
The students keep pushing. They say that usually an official transcript request has to go through the school. Like Corlands would have to send the school the transcript. Robertson can't just send a copy of it herself. And Superintendent Brown steps in saying that the school's waiting for Robertson to come there to request the actual transcript.
- [27:22]
Connor
That isn't unusual. That's how we work with any out of state people.
- [27:28]
Gina
As the interview went on, we felt like we were just getting more questions than answers, and we felt uncomfortable speaking up or asking some of our more invasive questions. With an administrator in the room, the.
- [27:45]
Narrator/Reporter
Students ask her why there isn't any proof of her consulting company. They ask where she lived in the 90s when she was getting her PhD at Cortland. Dr. Robertson says she had an apartment in New York City in the Upper west side, but actually she lived in Spain at the time, all while taking classes in California where her Aunt Linda was living.
- [28:06]
Gina
And at that time she wasn't married. Now she is remarried, lived with my Aunt Linda and got to her, who spent time with my granddaughter.
- [28:15]
Connor
Asking that question, I think is, I mean, why does anybody choose to go to the school they go to? Honestly.
- [28:26]
Gina
We had a running dock open in that moment, and at the top of it, in like bold and highlighted, was Destry yells at Connor at this timestamp. And we were really like, just shocked that. That our superintendent was sort of sweeping all these allegations under the rug without taking them seriously.
- [28:51]
Connor
I'm just asking. They choose that school generally because they want a quality, affordable education. And I just don't see how this is. It just doesn't matter.
- [29:01]
Glenn Washington
It just.
- [29:01]
Connor
It's kind of odd to me. Okay, we've exhausted this part, so let's.
- [29:07]
Narrator/Reporter
Talk about the interview. Lasts for. For nearly another hour.
- [29:11]
Connor
Thank you, Amy.
- [29:13]
Gina
Thank you. Thank you.
- [29:19]
Narrator/Reporter
The call ends.
- [29:21]
Connor
What other more questions you have me.
- [29:24]
Gina
That was just a lot of information for Owen. So.
- [29:30]
Connor
Seven years ago, when he hired Mr. Bishop, of course, we did go through all this process. No other employee I've Ever hired has had to go through the process. You just put her through, not even me. And so you need to understand, I have really gone out on a limb here, allowing you to have that freedom to ask those questions.
- [29:56]
Narrator/Reporter
Superintendent Brown left the room and the students just looked at one another.
- [30:03]
Emily Smith
We were just so overwhelmed. I said, we're gonna go off campus and talk about this.
- [30:14]
Narrator/Reporter
The students piled into cars and went to a nearby burger restaurant called the Pit. They placed their lunch orders and before.
- [30:21]
Emily Smith
The food came, they start pulling out their phones. And so we. One kid called the Department of Education at Kansas and the other kid recorded it while they had it on speaker. The Department of Education had said we would not acknowledge any of her credentials and she's not eligible for a Kansas principal license.
- [30:49]
Callie
And we're like 16 year olds and we're trying to call these universities to verify this information. Like it just, it felt bigger than our scope, than anything that we had done before.
- [31:01]
Narrator/Reporter
One student called Pitt State to ask if they'd have accepted credits from Corlens University.
- [31:07]
Emily Smith
And I remember the lady was like, well, hold on. And I remember she got back on the phone and she said, honey, have you given money to this school? I hope you have not given any money to this place because it is not an accredited institution and you will not get any of those credits.
- [31:25]
Narrator/Reporter
Connor called the University of Tulsa where Robertson reportedly had received her undergrad degree.
- [31:30]
Emily Smith
And they were like, we've never offered that degree. Like that degree is not available here.
- [31:36]
Connor
Like I remember that call being on speaker and the registrar saying that and hanging up and everyone just like slack jawed.
- [31:46]
Narrator/Reporter
The students were floored. Not only had they discovered that Corlens, where she said her master's and Ph.D. was from, was not accredited, but now they also had questions about her undergraduate degree. They could not ignore the information they had unmasked, but they would have to wait. Because the next day was the start of spring break in this small town. Rumors started going around. Adults had also searched Amy Robertson's name on the Internet.
- [32:46]
Emily Smith
Surely somebody else is going to get involved and like the adults are going to step in and do the adult thing.
- [32:52]
Narrator/Reporter
She hoped that someone on the board would look into Robertson's credentials. But when they got back to school from spring break, crickets.
- [33:00]
Emily Smith
And at this point there's all kinds of gossip going around, students and adults alike, that resulted in an emergency staff meeting. And we go to this staff meeting and I'm like hiding in the back because I'm very tall, I'm almost 6 foot, and I'm like, not wanting to make eye contact with anybody. The superintendent told the entire teaching staff, do you know how hard it is to hire a principal? Stop trying to interrupt my hiring process. Stop contacting board members, Stop writing letters to the local newspaper, and everything's gonna be fine. And I left that meeting, and I was like, my goodness, what's gonna happen? Like, something has to happen.
- [33:54]
Gina
I just remember the one class period when I'd walked in and Smith sort of looked around the room. She beckoned to the editors in chief and some writers to go to the back room. And we all sort of shuffled in and she shut the door behind her. And this was at the start of the class. And so we were really curious what was going on. She told us very frankly that she was going to recuse herself. She left it up to the students essentially, to say, hey, this is important information. Do with it what you will.
- [34:40]
Emily Smith
I didn't want people to think that I was pumping all this information to the students. And two, I wanted their reporting to be able to stand on its own accountability.
- [34:51]
Narrator/Reporter
And three, she was worried when she went to the Student Press Law center, an organization that supports free press for student journalists and their advisors. Members of the organization had advised Smith to recuse herself from the story.
- [35:07]
Gina
And so we were at, like, a very critical point of, like, do we want to look into this? Is it even our place as students? What should we do here?
- [35:19]
Maddie
In that moment, it was like, oh, man. Like, this is just us. Like, totally on us.
- [35:24]
Callie
I didn't want to create any issues or challenges or anything like that. Like, I just wanted to be your middle of the road, like, straight A student. It was that hard feeling of, like, I don't really want to write this.
- [35:38]
Gina
There could actually be fallout from this story.
- [35:43]
Narrator/Reporter
Trina went home and spoke to her parents about it. Her parents are from Bangladesh and Pittsburgh.
- [35:51]
Gina
Kansas is a predominantly white town. And it's like, my parents kind of had this. Not the sense of being an imposter, but of like. Like, we don't want to step out or like, yeah, or rock the boat in any way. And they're very much like, you shouldn't be writing a story like this.
- [36:14]
Narrator/Reporter
This was four days before the school newspaper print deadline. And it wasn't just any print deadline. It was the last one before school was out for the summer, meaning if they didn't hit the this deadline, they'd have to wait until next year to get their story out. By then, Principal Robertson would have moved to Kansas from Dubai. She would be in charge two Days before the print deadline, the students met in the newspaper garage room.
- [36:46]
Maddie
We've done research. We have evidence. Like, just be confident and go for it.
- [36:54]
Callie
This doesn't just affect us and our staff. It also affects all the other kids in, like, our whole community. We need to share this information that we've done all the work to find, so let's use it.
- [37:04]
Narrator/Reporter
And they made a decision. All six students were in.
- [37:08]
Gina
The hope was that now our facts would be taken seriously, and then some of the adults would take this out of our hands, you know, and do right by the information.
- [37:21]
Narrator/Reporter
Smith found a highly respected local journalist to step in and work with them on the story. And that journalist pushed them to double check all their sources to make sure the investigation was airtight. The students went into the garage and closed the door.
- [37:39]
Callie
I remember seeing people, like, kind of peeping in or, like, you know, staring at us, like, but we were definitely eating into our other class periods. Like, we couldn't stop.
- [37:49]
Narrator/Reporter
There were also a lot of laughs.
- [37:57]
Connor
At one point, our superintendent said something about us sleuthing. And so we would always call ourselves sleuths in the same, like, intonation that he would, where it was, you know, very, like, sleuthing, like, in apostrophe and not ing.
- [38:16]
Maddie
We always, like, we're like, we're the sleuthers.
- [38:19]
Connor
Like a sleuthen.
- [38:26]
Narrator/Reporter
The first draft came together hours before.
- [38:28]
Gina
The print deadline, and we were basically just running through the story, reading it aloud line by line to make sure we were saying what we wanted to say.
- [38:39]
Emily Smith
I remember Gina was, like, literally, like, typing out edits. Our graphic designer was just, like, sitting there waiting for her. We were way past our deadline to the printer.
- [38:53]
Narrator/Reporter
As the sun set over the school.
- [38:55]
Maddie
Building, I was like, oh, no. Like, is it okay like that? My name's on this. Is this going to hurt me? I'm gonna, like, get expelled. I'm gonna have to move to a new school.
- [39:10]
Narrator/Reporter
Callie sent PDF versions of the piece to a bunch of local journalists. Gina and the graphic designer formatted the piece for the paper and hit send to the printer.
- [39:20]
Callie
Here we go. It just kind of, like, felt like time froze almost, of just not knowing what's gonna.
- [39:39]
Glenn Washington
What is going to happen when people see what these students have written. Stay tuned. Did you know there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? I'm talking about Mood.com's incredible line of functional gummies. You can get 20% off your first order at Mood.com with promo code SNAP. Best of all, not only is every Mood product backed by a 100 day satisfaction guarantee, but as I mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code SNAP. So head to mood.com, find the functional gummy that matches exactly what you're looking for and let Mood help you discover your perfect mood. And don't forget to use promo Code Snap when you check out to save 20% on your first order.
- [40:36]
Emily Smith
Introducing the five year price guarantee from Xfinity.
- [40:39]
Maddie
No matter how your life or your taste in music changes in five years.
- [40:43]
Gina
Your Internet price will stay exactly the same.
- [40:46]
Narrator/Reporter
Restrictions apply.
- [40:47]
Gina
New residential customers only.
- [40:48]
Narrator/Reporter
Taxes and fees extra and subject to change.
- [41:02]
Glenn Washington
Welcome back to Snap Judgment. My name is Glenn Washington, and when last we left, these teenage journalists had just printed a very big edition of their high school paper.
- [41:14]
Narrator/Reporter
And the next day, they all woke up to their alarms, got to school, and met up in the newspaper room to get a first look at the paper before it went out.
- [41:27]
Connor
It definitely felt more crisp than usual.
- [41:31]
Callie
Just having that in our hands and really being able to, you know, you see the ink come off on your fingers, and it just kind of was like this surreal moment, like, wow, we did this.
- [41:41]
Narrator/Reporter
The students stood in a circle, silently reading their words on paper.
- [41:49]
Gina
Following the hiring of incoming Pittsburgh high school principal Dr. Amy Robertson On March 6, discrepancies arose between Robertson's personal accounts of her education and information provided by education institutions she said she attended.
- [42:06]
Callie
And then as we got done, people just kind of started, like, looking up and looking at each other.
- [42:11]
Maddie
Kind of.
- [42:12]
Callie
Processing, like, what we just had done and kind of feeling some of the excitement. And I just remember, like, seeing so many people on that page and just having their newspaper fully open and just reading it, like, it just felt bigger than any other newspaper.
- [42:30]
Connor
I saw people sitting at cafeteria desks. I saw people standing in hallways. I saw people kind of standing, like, in, like, the front lobby of the school, like, in circles with their friends, like, actually reading.
- [42:52]
Narrator/Reporter
As the day went on, the students waited for some kind of response.
- [42:56]
Connor
I think one of the worst feelings, though, was when we published and then just nothing really happened. And that was just really deflating.
- [43:10]
Emily Smith
And we didn't hear a single word from anybody. And we didn't hear anything all day Friday from any journalists.
- [43:18]
Narrator/Reporter
The next day, on a Saturday afternoon, a local newspaper published an online story about the article.
- [43:24]
Emily Smith
The headline read, brown Refutes claims in School Paper. Superintendent maintains new Principal, Highly Qualified, comma, best Candidate.
- [43:33]
Connor
They just refuted everything.
- [43:35]
Maddie
And that was kind of like, whoa. Like, oh, man, like all of Our hard work. And now no one's, like, gonna believe it, kind of.
- [43:44]
Connor
And that just sucked. It was really sad. We were like, is that really how it. How it ends?
- [43:51]
Narrator/Reporter
But this is a high school story. Prom was that very evening. Hours after that disappointing op ed, the students walked into an auditorium.
- [44:03]
Callie
It definitely felt a little bit like a movie scene, especially with, like, the whole massive masquerade setup. And just all of it just seemed so fitting that it was comical.
- [44:11]
Narrator/Reporter
The theme of prom that year, I kid you not, was masquerade.
- [44:16]
Maddie
They had, like, a little, like, photo booth where they had, like, mask. And so we all, like, took a picture, like, with masks on. And we're just kind of like the inside joke of, like. Like, we're the sleuthers who, like, who. Who wrote the story.
- [44:33]
Callie
Then we danced and we partied and, like, just kind of have a laugh about the whole thing.
- [44:38]
Narrator/Reporter
These six student journalists were back to just being high school students, celebrating the school year together until Monday, when a reporter at the Kansas City Star published an article about how these students reported their story.
- [44:54]
Maddie
And again, kind of, like, confirmed what we had said.
- [44:59]
Narrator/Reporter
The school board called for an emergency board meeting the following day.
- [45:03]
Gina
Smith was like, you guys need to go down there. You guys are the ones who did the reporting. You guys need to be there to hear what they have to say about.
- [45:14]
Narrator/Reporter
Was a Tuesday night, April 4th.
- [45:17]
Gina
So we all met up at this board meeting, knowing that we were going to get some answer from the board about the work that we had done as it was on the agenda.
- [45:29]
Emily Smith
And it's myself and the six students and one other staff member and her dad. And they were not happy to see any of us.
- [45:37]
Gina
It was an unusually full room. A few local news organizations in the corners. Every chair was filled, and so it became standing room only.
- [45:51]
Emily Smith
And so once again, I'm hiding in the back and the superintendent standing there in front of all the teaching staff.
- [46:00]
Gina
And I was checking my watch. And minutes before they were moving to a short Q and A period had brought up Dr. Robertson's resignation. I believe the chair of the board held up a letter and read a prepared statement saying. Saying that Dr. Robertson had resigned on her own accord.
- [46:26]
Emily Smith
He's like, I stand here before you to tell you that Amy Robertson, she was supposed to turn in a transcript for her undergrad degree. Nobody had heard from her, and she had 24 hours to respond.
- [46:44]
Narrator/Reporter
Amy Robertson didn't turn in a transcript, and she would no longer be the next principal of Pittsburgh High.
- [46:54]
Maddie
No one really acknowledged knowledge. The story kind of Acknowledged the reasons that, again, she resigned. And so I think it just overall felt very. Yeah, very weird.
- [47:08]
Emily Smith
And so then that was it. Like, nobody talked to them. Nobody said anything.
- [47:14]
Narrator/Reporter
But news of these teenagers. Investigations had spread beyond their small town, beyond Kansas. And after the board meeting that night, Connor's phone rang.
- [47:27]
Connor
It was late in the evening at this point, and I was, like, having a bowl of cheeses or something. I got a call from a number I didn't recognize, and it was a reporter at the Washington Post. I just went and woke up my mom. I was like, some reporter of the Washington Post just called me. And that, I think, was the moment where I think the dam broke.
- [47:57]
Narrator/Reporter
Investigative reporting by a group of student journalists forced their new principal to resign.
- [48:01]
Glenn Washington
Student journalists started asking questions about Amy Robertson, and they found things out that the school board did not. They are the intrepid student journalists being hailed today for uncovering the nasty truth.
- [48:13]
Gina
About their new principal.
- [48:14]
Narrator/Reporter
A group of students had their doubts.
- [48:16]
Gina
About their new principal, so they did a little digging into a resume.
- [48:23]
Narrator/Reporter
But when the national media outlets left their little town in Kansas, these sick students looked around and saw that some of the grownups around them wish they'd kept this story to themselves.
- [48:37]
Emily Smith
So many people blamed the kids and me for what happened, and people thought I should have censored them and prohibited them from printing the story.
- [48:48]
Callie
I feel like a lot of it had to do with pride, like, how embarrassing that our school board didn't vet this well enough, and now these high schoolers are exposing it to the community.
- [49:01]
Gina
And caused me some discomfort just because I attributed that blame to me, Like, I was responsible for inviting some of this antagonism or I was creating, you know, upheaval in the community. In some way, there was some sort of distrust that we had created at the community level of how our schools were running.
- [49:33]
Callie
As high school students, Especially as these straight A students who just want to be respectful and, like, have their teachers like them and whatever else. Like, I think it was really tough for us to overcome the idea that not everyone was going to be pleased with our story.
- [50:07]
Glenn Washington
Emily Smith left her job at Pittsburgh High a few years after the investigation to focus on her family and is now registered as a candidate for school board. In the fall. Callie graduated and went on to become an elementary school teacher. Connor just graduated from law school. Gina's getting her master's in international relations, and Maddie teaches third grade. Gina is the only one of the six students who went on to work in journalism. She went to Swarthmore, where she wrote on the university's paper about frat culture on campus and an allegedly abusive basketball coach. And she's now sleuthing in New York City as a professional journalist.
- [50:46]
Gina
And for me, it felt like empowering.
- [50:49]
Narrator/Reporter
To be able to do that, to.
- [50:50]
Gina
Realize that, like, I had a voice and that people were willing to listen.
- [51:01]
Glenn Washington
Extra special thanks to Emily Smith and her team of Sleuthers. The original score for that story was by Nick Marks, was produced by Sheena Shealy. Oh, good news. Good news, Snappers. There is more because this is just episode two of the Snap Judgment School Days series on the Next School Days. After graduation for a full decade, one guy's life is nothing but a series of disappointments. He decides a fresh start is in order. Figures. He still looks young. Nobody will ever know. So he returns to where everything went wrong and enrolls in high school again. Yep, that's on the next School Days episode from Snap Judgment. If you miss even a moment of Snap School Days series, you are in luck. Come listen on the Snap Judgment podcast because SNAP rocks podcast platforms everywhere. Snap Judgment Yellow Brick Road passes through KQED in San Francisco. No Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. Take that, Skynet. Snap is brought to you by the team demanding the emancipation of flying monkeys. Except, of course, for the uber producer, Mr. Mark Wistich. He doesn't believe in defying gravity. On Team Stamp, the union represented producers, artists, editors and engineers, members of the national association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers America, AFL CIO Local 51. And there's Nancy Lopez, Pat McM Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goriot, John Facile, Shayna Shealy, Taylor Dukat, Flo Wylie, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, and Regina Bediaga. Now, this is not the news. No way is this the news. In fact, you could take your high school yearbook out to reminisce about your old martial arts teacher, realize suddenly that you never had a martial arts teacher because you never took martial arts and the bully never tried to steal your girlfriend. All that was in that Karate Kid movie and you would still still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is prx.