School Closures Live Reporting
In the spring of 2023, my school district faced consequences of a budget crisis from the year prior. One of my many events I covered were the hearings held at the final two schools up for closure — Pinckney and Broken Arrow Elementary.
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The hearings were held at each school, bringing out hundreds of families and teachers. Not only did I report live on Twitter, but also took photos to add to posts and document those who came to support their beloved schools.
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The process proved to be very emotional, seeing students, teachers and parents pleading with school board members to keep their schools open.
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Click on the icons to see the full reporting.
Finals Days at Pinckney Elementary
Shortly after the decision was made to close the schools, I visited Pinckney Elementary to follow what a typical morning was like at their school. It was a passion project after a long road of closure reporting that I felt was more personal than data and news.
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For this piece, I took the photos, interviewed students and teachers, and designed the graphic for social media.
Student features
I focused on specific students and their stories at Pinckney. I interviewed long-time Pinckney students about what their favorite things about the school were, what they would miss, and what they thought the future looked like for them in the fall.
The locations of the photos are crucial to my reporting, because the location for each photo was the student's favorite place in the building.
