Lynn-Clara is the outgoing editor-in-chief of Edina High School's student-led print and online news publication, Zephyrus. She formerly served as design editor and student life section editor.
If you told me four years ago that I would spend my senior year in near-daily conflict with administrators, staying up late with a pit in my stomach, I would not have applied to join Edina Zephyrus. I would have followed the road laid out for me: engineering, medicine, something more guaranteed. I would have skimmed the newspaper each month, finished the crossword and tossed it in the recycling bin.
I never would have learned what it feels like to run toward a story.
Eight days after the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting, thirteen minutes from our campus, Edina students walked out for gun reform and I ran alongside them with a camera slung around my neck.
When I got back to the publications room, I kneeled in front of a chair, scrolling through photos with fingers shaking from the cold and the nerves. I skipped class to upload images and publish within the hour so our community could see how students were responding to violence.
In moments like that, I feel the infrastructure we have so carefully built behind me: editors who taught me to shoot in manuals, writers who drop everything for breaking news and an adviser who taught us to report ethically under pressure. They make it possible to choose action over comfort.
As immigration enforcement expanded across Minnesota, our district made a series of decisions with which we fundamentally disagreed. Administrators did not create or publicize a plan to address the threat of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Edina, and in December, our Editorial Board published a piece calling for transparency from the district. We spoke with the superintendent and principal, reviewed multiple district policies, tracked federal enforcement changes and compared communications from neighboring districts.
A few weeks ago, our incoming editor-in-chief reported on staff concerns with district guidance about political speech and surveyed a third of the faculty. When administrators did not respond in the time allotted by district policy, we made the decision to publish a developing story and noted that we were awaiting comment.
After publication, administrators told us that any response would now appear reactive. I understand that position, but student journalism often operates in imperfect windows. Waiting indefinitely would have meant withholding information that directly affects our teachers and peers.
What unsettles me more is what followed. At a Parent Leadership Council meeting, administrators described our reporting as part of a pattern of misrepresentation and suggested that our articles are not vetted or fact-checked because we are student-run. They questioned our professionalism and, indirectly, the character of our incoming editor-in-chief.
I am seventeen. I still ask my adviser if a sentence sounds fair. I still reread emails three times before hitting send. But I also know our process. Every story, photo and art piece is edited by multiple student editors and reviewed by our adviser before publication. We have protocols for nearly every situation. When someone says that none of our work is checked, they are not critiquing teenagers experimenting with a blog; they are dismissing an institution built from the ground up.
Neither of these pieces were written in anger. We want students and staff to know they are safe and heard. Reassurance alone does not guarantee protection. But it is difficult to move forward and coordinate with administrators when we feel locked out of these conversations ourselves.
In our last issue, readers read the words “We are at war” open my final letter from the editor. War is a dramatic word. Yet silence allows other people to define this reality for you. I chose that word carefully. Independent journalists have been arrested for covering anti-ICE protests. A KARE 11 reporter was pushed and sprayed by federal agents despite wearing a visible press badge. In Edina, war happens when institutions respond to community fear with vagueness and neutrality and when student journalists are told their work is irresponsible.
Still, the most important part of that letter is not the metaphor. It is the people. In it, I thank each person on my editorial board for their hard work and dedication. I think about how we fight because we all want the same thing: that Zephyrus be a light our community recognizes and trusts.
The pit in my stomach is nowhere near unraveling. It will follow me through the editorial board transition and meetings with administrators and the moment I walk across the stage. But I also know it will follow me when I am recognized for our work at the local grocery store or when a freshman tells me they want to join our staff because they read our editorial.
Journalism has complicated the life I once imagined for myself. It has put me in rooms where I am the youngest person by decades, asking questions that make people uncomfortable. It has taught me that being a changemaker is less about having the loudest voice, and more about amplifying the quietest.
While I did not join Zephyrus to fight administrators, if you told me four years ago that I would have the greatest, lifelong companions and more experience under my belt than most other communicators, I would have applied to Zephyrus in a heartbeat. Somewhere along the way, I learned that telling stories honestly can be a form of resistance. And even with the pit in my stomach, I would choose this road again.