KIRKWOOD, Mo. — There’s controversy over this year's Kirkwood High School yearbook.
The yearbook is titled “What It Means," and the sections in question are pages written by students talking about drugs, alcohol, and hookup culture at the school. What some parents said is inappropriate and explicit, others said is a reflection the society they live in.
“So it’s kind of like sports, then a timeline of the year, then bam, drugs and alcohol," Kori Hughes said.
Hughes is a Kirkwood School District parent whose son will be a freshman in two years. She and district parent Nicki Walker both bought copies for their children in the district.
“I mean there’s pictures of condoms, Plan B, pregnancy tests, asking for the weirdest place you’ve hooked up ... meaning had sex," Hughes said, reading parts of the copy out loud. “[It says] Altered State dressing room in the West County Mall, the football field between two field hockey goals.”
Walker said the real issue is bigger than just the words.
“The issue isn’t that it was published, the issue was that these things are happening and they’re clearly aware of it, what are they gonna do?” she said. "100% ]of kids surveyed] know someone who’s vaped at school, and this is being published, so what’s the school doing about this? Why are kids vaping in the bathroom at school?”
“This is condoning this behavior if you ask me,” Walker said.
But parent Dr. Derek Byers is on a different page altogether.
“This isn’t condoning it, it’s just saying their experience," he said. “It’s sort of recognizing what kids are dealing with these days, which is gender issues, racism, censorship, sex, relationships.”
He said both this yearbook and its contents are first amendment rights.
“I mean these are issues that they’re dealing with," he said.
Different perspectives can be part of the same story.
“There’s no warning label that this might contain mature content," Walker said.
“They’re allowed freedom to publish what they think is relevant," Byers said.
Sometimes it's up to the reader to decide, what it means.
The Kirkwood School District provided 5 On Your Side with a full statement:
"Kirkwood High School has a longstanding tradition of allowing student media to be designated public forums. This practice has led to the Kirkwood High School journalism program being one of 16 programs in the country announced by the Journalism Education Association, National Scholastic Press Association, and Quill and Scroll International Honorary Society as a First Amendment Press Freedom Award school for 2023. As school officials do not engage in prior review, the content of KHS Media is determined by and reflects only the views of the student staff and not school officials or the school itself."