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Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) and Palo Alto High School are pleased to announce that journalism adviser Paul B. Kandell has been named the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund’s 2009 National Journalism Teacher of the Year. Richard S. Holden, executive director of the Fund, said, “Paul brought a wealth of journalism experience into the classroom, and it shows in the quality of the media he advises. He also played a large role in working with the University of California to ensure journalism courses were treated with the respect they deserve. Paul joins a long line of dedicated and talented advisers who have been honored as our journalism teacher of the year.”

A National Board Certified Teacher who came to Paly in August 2000, Mr. Kandell advises the student staff of Verde, a 72-page, color newsmagazine, published five times a year, and The Paly Voice (http://voice.paly.net), a Website that publishes the combined work of more than 200 students from five different publications (newspaper, newsmagazine, sports magazine, broadcast and Web. Mr. Kandell also teaches Beginning Journalism and is a teacher-adviser for tenth-, eleventh-, and twelfth-graders. “I am thrilled at the opportunity to represent my school, district, and professional colleagues at the national level,” Mr. Kandell said. “I am going to proudly show the world what happens when a school community — faculty, administration, parents, and students — work together to support student expression. Palo Alto is a national leader in this respect.”

When Mr. Kandell accepts his award in November at a national scholastic journalism convention in Washington, D.C., he says he will be doing so in large part on behalf of Paly’s combined group of media arts teachers, who also include Esther Wojcicki, Ellen Austin, Mike McNulty, Margo Wixsom, and Ron Williamson. “Most people have no idea of the level of talent and leadership this campus has in media arts,” Mr. Kandell said. “They’re an amazing group, one that has a shared vision of what journalism education can and should be.” That vision this year includes a new state-of-the-art media arts center to house the six teachers and 550 students who work in Paly’s journalism, photography, and video production classes. Mr. Kandell, who a decade ago helped design a new journalism facility at San Francisco’s Lowell High School, has been the leading promoter of the plan to use a portion of Measure A bond funds to build the proposed Paly structure.

In addition to his November speech, the Teacher of the Year is on the program at the March national convention of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, a co-sponsor of the award, in New York City. Mr. Kandell will also attend the conventions of the American Society of News Editors in April and a college-level journalism educators association in August. Additionally, he is invited to attend a professional-level seminar at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, in St. Petersburg, Fla., and is a paid columnist for the Fund’s free quarterly newspaper, Adviser Update. DJNF will pay the PAUSD a per diem for all of Mr. Kandell’s program-related absences.

Among other benefits of his award, the Paly journalism program will receive a state-of-the-art laptop computer; a Paly senior will receive a $1,000 college scholarship to pursue journalism studies; and Mr. Kandell will receive a pin and a plaque. The Teacher of the Year award also includes free subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition (a co-sponsor of the awards program), which includes 30 copies of the full-color newspaper for students, a free Teacher Guide, unlimited access to the Classroom Edition Website and a daily Journal. The Poynter Institute will also give the top teachers and their students access to webinars through its NewsU training project.

Mr. Kandell, who has been advising student media for 13-1/2 years, was a stringer for Newsweek’s San Francisco bureau through the early 90s and taught journalism and English at Lowell High School in San Francisco for four years before arriving at Palo Alto. He holds a Master’s in Journalism from the University of Missouri, a Bachelor’s from the University of California at Berkeley, and a secondary credential in English from San Francisco State University. A frequent presenter at state and national journalism conventions, he is a Board Member for the Journalism Education Association of Northern California and a Member of the Advisory Council Steering Committee for the Student Press Law Center.

While his staffs regularly win top awards from national student press associations, a breakthrough moment for him came in 2005 when the staff of The Paly Voice won a Webby Award and a People’s Choice award from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Another high point came in 2006, when Mr. Kandell was named a DJNF Distinguished Adviser after co-writing a model curriculum that dramatically improved UC approval of courses statewide. In April, Mr. Kandell was named California’s Adviser of the Year by the California Journalism Education Coalition even as he was in the midst of preparing for two novel summer programs: (1) an eight week journalism program in East Palo Alto designed specifically to encourage Paly students who live there to take journalism classes during the school year; and (2) a ground-breaking workshop at San Francisco State University for advisers wanting to move their journalism programs to the Web.

A panel selected Mr. Kandell as the nation’s top journalism teacher from a pool of 26 applicants who submitted their student publications, résumés, letters of recommendation, and responses to fourteen questions. The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, a nonprofit organization supported by the Dow Jones Foundation and other media companies, encourages high school and college students to pursue journalism careers. It publishes Adviser Update, a free tabloid newspaper for high school journalism teachers, and career guides, The Journalist’s Road to Success and its Spanish language companion, La Ruta al Éxito del Periodista.