Weirton, W.VA. – Weir High School and its Weir Student Media program have been recognized for the third year in a row as recipients of the First Amendment Press Freedom Award.
Announced on February 26, Student Press Freedom Day of Scholastic Journalism Week, Weir joins 26 other schools from 12 U.S. states and the United Kingdom that have been named 2026 recipients of the honor. Throughout its history, the award has been presented to 67 schools.
To earn the award, Weir’s applicants demonstrated that the school celebrates and honors the First Amendment, encourages student press freedom and promotes media literacy in many classes and content areas through instructional lesson plans, project-based learning, collaborative initiatives and more.
In addition to the evidence provided in previous years, the applicants also referenced Hancock County Schools’ participation in the News Literacy Project District Fellowship Grant, for which Bricker serves as the county fellowship lead, as well as the school’s new dual credit journalism course, Media Literacy through Marshall University, which Bricker instructs. Both initiatives serve to further help students understand the First Amendment and navigate the increasingly complex news and media landscape in which they live.
The student media program played a significant role in the application, too. The student-led, semi-converged program includes a student-produced online news site, video announcements and broadcast projects on their YouTube channel, the school yearbook, an annual senior video, social media accounts and more. The classes are hands-on, project-based, and collaborative, and students cover the events, issues and people that matter to them and their peers.
Since advocating for West Virginia’s New Voices Law: The Student Journalist Press Freedom Protection Act in 2023, Bricker and her students also continue to participate in efforts to encourage implementation of the law across the state and help other states enact their own New Voices legislation. They present sessions at national conventions alongside the Student Press Law Center to share their experiences with that process.
“We do everything we can not only to inform students that we have these rights as citizens but also to educate them about how to exercise them ethically and responsibly for the betterment of their school and community,” Bricker said.
Bestowed by the Journalism Education Association, National Scholastic Press Association and Quill and Scroll International Honor Society, the JEA site says, “the First Amendment Press Freedom Award recognizes private and public high schools that actively support, teach and protect First Amendment rights and responsibilities of students and teachers, with an emphasis on student-run media where students make all final decisions of content through policies and practice.”
Photo caption: Weir’s journalism students, Quill and Scroll members, and Weir Student Media staff celebrated the award with cookie cake on the final day of Scholastic Journalism week.
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