Ajane Burnley, editor of Renton High’s student newspaper, always knows best. At least, that’s what she’ll tell you.

“She will put me in my place,” said teacher Derek Smith with a laugh. Bantering with the auspicious editor over lesson plans isn’t unusual.

Although only two years old, the ARROW newsmagazine accepted five national and state awards this year. For a not-so-easy elective, its class is thriving.

“To see young people who are becoming adults take ownership of their education is tremendously inspiring,” Smith said.

Smith began the school year by equipping students with a framework and the skills to produce a newspaper. By the end of the year, Burnley and a few others had taken charge of the class.

“It was still a lot of work, because we had never taught before,” she said.

Teacher and student will debate the lesson plans over e-mail, texting and even by leaving sticky notes.

While Smith has obvious control over the class, Burnley goes through the class schedule, passes out articles to be edited and leads a team-building exercises, one was called name that Disney song.

By its nature, the course challenges the traditional classroom setting, where a bad grade mostly just affects the students who get them, Smith said.

When students don’t do their work, the whole newspaper suffers.

“It throws that whole paradigm on its head,” he said. “It raises their awareness that, ‘I let people down.’”

When others have to pick up the slack, tensions tend to rise among editors and students. Smith uses it as a teaching opportunity, he said.

Burnley has learned to have more patience with her classmates, she said. “It’s just a lot of personal growth.”

The teens grow in other ways too.

The students, who converse more frequently through texting than in person, are forced to communicate face to face.

“It’s so healthy for them to come into an environment where they have to talk,” Smith said.

The ARROW is as spirited as its students.

A single photo takes up the front page, like a magazine. In one edition, students were pictured yelling after the Day of Silence.

A tagline follows the masthead, “A forum for student expression.”

The stories are often written with the first person and sometimes express frank opinions. Writer Irene Muller took a first prize for column writing this year.

When Smith applied for his current position at Renton High School, it had been a few years since the journalism program was cut.

Principal Damien Pattenaude asked him if he’d be interested in starting the newspaper up again, he said.

Smith, who had taught journalism at a school in Gig Harbor for six years, jumped at the opportunity, he said.

“In the end, I think we had a really successful year,” he said. “(The class) is the favorite part of my day.”

Twice a production cycle, Smith treats a handful of students to cupcakes at a local coffee shop, while they edit stories.

Plates of cupcakes, many with double frosting, fill the center of the table. The kids chow down, before sifting through the stories and idea submissions.

Section editors choose what stories to run, and students create their own art and design.

This year the class produced six newspapers, a literary magazine and a back-to-school special edition.

Distribution day is exciting for the staff. The press prints about 2,000 black-and-white copies with the goal of filling every backpack and some downtown newstands.

“It’s really neat to walk the halls and see almost everyone in school reading about each other,” Burnley said.

A letter greets readers on page two and refers to the ARROW as a “monthly miracle.”

“Along with the greater amount of freedom comes a greater responsibility,” Smith said. “They rise up to the expectation.”