PITTSBURG, Kan. — A new hire at a Southeast Kansas high school has resigned after the student newspaper raised concerns about some of her credentials.

Amy Robertson, who currently works with an education consulting firm in Dubai, was offered the position of Pittsburg High School principal on March 6. She resigned Tuesday “in light of the issues that arose,” the school district said in a statement.

The main concern stemmed from her receiving her master’s and doctoral degrees from Corllins University, an unaccredited online school. The report from the student paper, The Booster Redux, further suggested that Robertson had provided “incomplete answers, conflicting dates and inconsistencies in her responses” during a video interview with the staff after her hiring.

That story since has propelled the student newspaper staff into the spotlight, as major media outlets including National Public Radio, the New York Times, the Washington Post and ABC’s “Good Morning America” requested interviews with the students and their adviser Wednesday afternoon.

“I feel that we are kind of the voice of our school,” Maddie Baden, a PHS junior and a co-editor of the paper, said. “Without this (report), no one probably would have thought to question (the new principal), but we are known to kind of go a little bit deeper.”

Unmet qualifications

The principal’s position opened in early February and drew more than a dozen applicants, Superintendent Destry Brown said. A committee including high school faculty, staff and students helped screen and interview candidates, he said.

Robertson was initially selected because she was student-centered, familiar with Common Core State Standards and was a people person — all qualities that the committee was looking for, Brown said. References were called, and an employment offer was extended and approved by the local board of education in early March, he said.

According to Brown, it wasn’t until that time that the district ran a background check and asked for a teaching license and official transcripts.

“The board makes the decision to move forward (with a hire) and is willing to hire the person contingent upon these things,” he said.

Brown declined to say whether Robertson could produce a teaching license and transcripts, citing personnel confidentiality.

“All I can say is that she was not going to meet the qualifications that were required to fulfill the position as of today,” he said.

He also declined to say whether Robertson resigned voluntarily or was asked by the board and administrators to resign once they believed she was unqualified for the position.

“I would say that may have become mutual at some point,” he said.

Brown on Wednesday defended the hiring process, saying that in the eight years he has been with the district, this marked the first time that it failed. He said he plans to change when during the process the district requests licensing information and transcripts from candidates.

Student investigation

Baden, one of the student co-editors, was initially assigned to write a profile of the new principal. After an interview with her, Baden said she had more questions, so she began looking Robertson up online.

That led to a staff discussion: What they were finding — a website for Corllins University that didn’t work and no business license in that university’s name listed in the California city where Robertson allegedly said she had attended classes for her degrees — was raising some red flags among them. So they continued digging, eventually laying out their concerns in a story that was published in their newspaper in mid-March.

“Our focus with the story was simply to inform the community because (with Robertson) as an administrator and someone from overseas, we wanted to understand who this person was and make sure we had the facts,” Baden said. “Our thought process behind it was simply to confirm who Dr. Robertson was and make sure we had the right information.”

The students said they were surprised by the outcome of their investigation, which led to Robertson’s resignation. They also said they’ve been overwhelmed by the national attention their work has received.

“Sometimes, you have to pursue something even when someone tells you there’s nothing else there,” Kali Poenitske, a junior co-editor, said. “We learned to keep going, and this story really helped us all learn that.”

Brown said The Booster Redux staff met with him over the course of their reporting with questions they had regarding Robertson’s hiring and research they had done into her background. He said he was proud of their work and their willingness to investigate a story.

“I want them to ask questions; I don’t want them to just sit back and accept something because an adult told them,” he said. “I appreciate that they have done that.”

Pittsburg journalism adviser Emily Smith, in an Associated Press interview, said she was “very proud” of her students, adding: “They were not out to get anyone to resign or to get anyone fired. They worked very hard to uncover the truth.”

Robertson said there was “no issue” when she received the degrees from Corllins in 1994 and 2010. She declined to comment on questions posed by the students about her credentials because, she said, “their concerns are not based on facts.”

‘Liberty of the press’

The students’ report was made possible thanks in part to a state law that gives student journalists the same protections as professional journalists. The law is “probably one of the better ones in the nation” when it comes to student journalists, said Doug Anstaett, executive director of the Kansas Press Association.

The law protects “the liberty of the press in student publications.” It gives school employees the right to determine the number, length, frequency, distribution and format of student publications, but it also mandates that “material shall not be suppressed solely because it involves political or controversial subject matter.”

The law also requires student journalists to be held to the same standards as professional journalists regarding libel, slander and obscenity.

Anstaett said the law provides a “tremendous hands-on learning experience” to students who are learning how journalism works, and who desire to investigate an issue that is of critical importance to them, such as the hiring of their new principal.

“We’re proud of those student journalists and what they’ve done,” he said. “It shows the importance of the press and its investigative watchdog role in society.”

The principal’s position at Pittsburg High School has been reopened to applicants. Superintendent Destry Brown hopes to have somebody in place by mid-May.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Younker writes for the Joplin, Missouri Globe.