Journalism educators! Join IJEA today! Annual memberships for 2025-26 and lifetime memberships are available. Use our online form or fillable PDF to join!
Yearbook advisers! We are now accepting entries for the 2025 IJEA Yearbook Contest! The postmark deadline is Oct. 15, 2025, for books that cover 2024-25 school year.
Congratulations to IJEA member schools Huntley H.S. and Prospect H.S. on co-winning the IHSA journalism state title! The schools tied for 1st place at the IHSA finals April 25 in Normal.
Congratulations to IJEA Executive Director Linda Jones on receiving the national JEA's Lifetime Achievement Award! She was honored at the 2025 Spring JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention in Seattle.
Congratulations to IJEA member Leslie Fireman, journalism adviser at West Chicago High School, on winning the national JEA's Rising Star Award! She was honored at the 2024 Fall JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention in Philadelphia.
Congratulations to IJEA Hall of Fame member Stan Zoller, MJE, on being the inaugural winner of the National JEA's Candace and John Bowen Adviser First Amendment Leadership Award! He was honored at the 2024 Fall JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention in Philadelphia.

Illinois Journalism Education Association, 2501 Chatham Road, Suite 200, Springfield, IL 62704

Illinois JEA

By Randy Swikle, IJEA board member and retired journalism teacher

Randy Swikle, CJE, now retired from Johnsburg High School, was the 1999 Dow Jones News Fund National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year. A co-founder of the Illinois Journalism Education Association in 1988, he was twice elected president of the organization, served as JEA state director and was an inaugural member of the IJEA Hall of Fame.

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When schools take free speech seriously, so do students

By Randy Swikle, IJEA Board Member
October 23, 2015

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By Randy Swikle