STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) - Student journalists at a Central Valley high school are getting a lesson in the First Amendment after administrators confiscated their newspaper over concerns about a campus safety article.

The principal of Stockton's Bear Creek High School, Shirley McNichols, stopped distribution of 1,700 copies of the monthly Bruin Voice newspaper last week, saying a front-page article about allegedly outdated safety policies could panic students.

Editor-in-Chief Justine Change and adviser Kathi Duffel told The Record of Stockton that the principal was embarrassed about what the article exposed.

McNichols denied that.

The article quoted school administrators as saying that recent lockdown drills and two reports of weapons on campus revealed poor communication.

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