Kim Pekala will go back to school geared with money and expertise to improve her school’s student news media.

The Coral Springs Charter School teacher recently received $1,000 through the 1 For All First Amendment Challenge, a prize that recognized her innovative teaching of the First Amendment. She was also selected to attend the Reynolds High School Journalism Institute, where she spent a week learning hands-on ways to help her students excel in scholastic journalism.

Pekala, who teaches English and newspaper in Coral Springs, Florida, said she makes it a priority to make sure her students understand their First Amendment rights as journalists.

“I believe that teaching citizenship is just as important as college prep, and knowing one’s rights is an important part of citizenship,” she said.

Pekala said she believes the best way to learn something is to teach it, so she asked her students to come up with ways to teach the freedoms of the First Amendment to their peers. One of the ways her students taught freedom of speech to other students was by helping them come up with questions for the Teen Political Forum, a local event where students talk with local politicians about issues that concern teens.

Pekala’s innovative teaching method helped her become one of the 40 First Amendment Challenge winners, who each received $1,000.

“I am extremely proud to be recognized in this way because, as is well known amongst my students, I am very passionate about equality, liberty and justice,” Pekala said. “Our best tools for enacting change are well written works and articulate speeches, and history has proven that many groups have made strides toward or ensured their own equality through the rhetorical skills of their spokespeople.”

Pekala said the prize money could not have come at a better time.

“We began our first online newspaper last year, but with no budget and limited resources, we couldn’t do a great deal,” she said. “Now we are starting our first print (publication) and have already started securing the equipment we need to really feel like we’re doing the job right.”

Pekala spent time this summer building teaching and journalism skills at the Reynolds High School Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. Those skills, combined with the Challenge prize money, will have a significant impact on her school’s scholastic media.

“There was a great deal of focus on participating in journalism using mobile devices, which really made our lack of resources seem like a non-issue [because] much can be done with a smartphone, which most of my kids have,” Pekala said. “I also learned ways in which I can continue giving my students more independence in the classroom by encouraging them to try new things and do their own research, through pointing them to as many resources as I can. I also learned some preliminary skills in design, which I’ll need now that we’re starting a print newspaper, and even a bit of broadcasting, which I am thinking of incorporating into our online newspaper, though it never even occurred to me before.”

Pekala said the knowledge gained and relationships built at the Institute will benefit her teaching.

“It was the best kind of professional development — amazing teachers, collaboration with like-minded educators, exceptional resources and even opportunities to share our own strengths with our peers,” she said. “Also, it was an opportunity to practice journalism; something I think we forget to do over time in teaching it. Practicing journalism really reawakened in me why I was so passionate about teaching it in the first place.”

The 1 For All First Amendment Challenge was funded by a generous grant from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. The Reynolds High School Journalism Institute was funded by a generous grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.