In August, we announced a new initiative to support up and coming FOIA fighters who want to help better understand and report on government. Today we’re pleased to announce the college participants in the inaugural MuckRock’s Student Journalist FOIA Grants.

Whether it’s teenagers digging into a long-forgotten promise or a high school paper uncovering discrepancies in their principal’s credentials, students that learn how to use public records can punch well above their weight class in accountability and transparency. With our new Student Journalist FOIA Grant, MuckRock wants to help.

Over the course of the last twenty years, retired Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman has risen to become the go-to expert for US law enforcement, traveling across the country giving seminars to police and sheriff’s deputies through his incredibly-named Killology Research Group. Records regarding one such training show Grossman’s interest in branching out, bringing “the Bulletproof Mind” to hospitals and high schools.

FBI officials fretted over critical press coverage of their interactive website and online game on violent extremism aimed at high school students and attempted to assuage concerns raised by civil liberties and Muslim organizations, according to documents released through a FOIA request.

Cortland, New York, is a small city where nothing much happens. The newspaper is about ten pages long, and sometimes whole pages are devoted to not only their high school’s honor roll, but that of the next town over as well. But ten years ago, controversy struck, one with all the workings of a Lifetime teen drama: A number of kids were suspended from extracurricular activities for appearing in MySpace photos holding red cups. Parents and students rallied together and stood up against the administration, striking a blow for online privacy and varsity football.