The California Scholastic Journalism Initiative (CSJI) is a non-profit effort to restore and improve student journalism programs in California public schools. CSJI helps develop and support collaborative efforts involving funders, professional media, and education organization to rebuild journalism programs, especially in urban high schools where they are most at risk.
The Sacramento High School Journalism Network (SHSJN) is part of this initiative and produces The Sac County Breeze, a regional high school newspaper. At least twelve local high schools are involved with ten of them being in Sacramento County. The SHSJN is a project of the California Scholastic Journalism Initiative in collaboration with The Sacramento Bee and the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE). The program was started with generous funding from former newspaper publisher Rowland “Reb” Rebele, a First Amendment advocate and philanthropist.
The stories produced by the students are filtered through a team of writing coaches. Professional journalists serve as mentors and support the students in the classroom. SHSJN also provides monitoring for the teachers, free curriculum materials, and access to scholastic journalism resources.
Students are supervised by Steve O’Donoghue, California Scholastic Journalism Initiative director.