Story Archive

The Search is Over — Let the Search Begin!

Once Amy Robertson passed her interviews and background checks to become the principal at Pittsburg (Kan.) High School, student reporters at the Booster Redux, the school’s newspaper, started working on a story to introduce her to the 900 students. When they checked, they found that the school Robertson claimed to get her Master’s and Doctorate degrees, which qualified her for the $93,000-per-year job, isn’t a real school, but a “diploma mill” that sells degrees. Worse, they found that the previous school she had run, a private English language school in Dubai, received an “unsatisfactory” rating from the Dubai Education Authority every year for four years, until it was closed. “If students could uncover all of this,” said student reporter Maddie Baden, 17, “I want to know why the adults couldn’t.” Once their article was published, Robertson quickly resigned. Superintendent Destry Brown announced the school will re-open the job posting. “Our goal is to find the best person to be our principal that we can find,” he said. (RC/Kansas City Star) ...Then put Miss Baden on the review committee.