Letter from the Editor-in-Chief

On behalf of the Forge Staff of 2008 and the many staffs that Ms. Bartz has advised I would like to thank her for her time, effort, and dedication to The Forge during her time at SBHS. Ms. Bartz has spent countless hours of time reading and editing student work, taking photographs at sporting events, and a variety of other tasks for the paper that have gone above and beyond what is required of her as a teacher and what is compensated by the school district.

But it is not just time and effort that she has given to the students who have walked into the newsroom. Her experience as a newspaper advisor, a member of the journalism community, and a scholar has proved invaluable to all that we do at the Forge. She has also inspired a love for this strange thing we do in dozens of students including myself. It is one thing for an educator to say that they will stand up for a student but it is a different thing entirely for them to actually do so. It is a reality of our field that not everyone agrees with what we always publish and over the years Ms. Bartz has taken heat from administrators, teachers, students, and parents on our behalf; something that is not in the contract of any educator.

Members of the staff will attest to the fact that we do not always agree with her methods or suggestions but after the dust settles when the paper is printed we are thankful for what Ms. Bartz does for the paper. Any confrontation that occurs between members of the staff and her is because we all want each issue to be the best possible.
I think it is easy for some teachers to become detached from the reality that they are working with teenagers that still have some maturing to do. Whenever the staff has had to remind her of this she has taken it with a sense of humor and understanding that I don’t think many people our age would expect an adult to have.

Next year not just this publication but Santa Barbara High School as a whole will be losing a truly valuable resource. The loss will be tremendous to the Forge but the determination that Ms. Bartz helped the senior editors foster among the staff after the devastating robbery in February will continue after she is gone. But with the mantra that has been beaten into us as students at SBHS (once a Don always a Don) the staff and I realize that with such a tight knit community of Santa Barbara which is made even tighter by our love of journalism our adviser will never leave entirely.

Danny Langhorne
Editor-in-Chief