Reporting
I've covered topics ranging from education to policing to major breaking news. Some of the pieces I've pitched and reported are linked below.
Data and Investigative Reporting
A school promised not to send kids to the ER for misbehavior – but hospital trips only increased — In one small Maryland school district, students are sent to the emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation at least three times a week. Many are kids with disabilities whose needs are not being met in the classroom. The Associated Press, Dec. 5, 2023
Black kids face racism before they even start school. It's driving a major mental health crisis — Part of AP's series on a lifetime of persistent health disparities for Black Americans, this story documented how discrimination, both systemic and individual, contributes to worsened mental health outcomes for Black teenagers. The Associated Press, May 23, 2023
Kids with disabilities face off-the-books school suspensions — For kids with disabilities, calls for early pickups and shortened school days that go unrecorded amount to a denial of their educational rights. The practice, known as an informal removal, is by nature hard to scrutinize and designed to avoid accountability. Our reporting prompted an immediate response from Senators, who directed the Education Department to take steps to address the practice. The Associated Press, Oct. 4, 2022
CMS spent over $1 million on a school security system. It doesn’t work.— After the fatal shooting of a student at Butler High School in 2018, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ leaders assured the public that a new crisis alert system would make children safer. But they didn’t reveal one important detail: The system didn’t work. The Charlotte Observer, Jan. 10, 2020
Did people close to Clayton Wilcox benefit from CMS deals he helped broker? — Former Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools superintendent pushed the district to buy and license technology from companies that employed his friends and his sons. This story was the first in a series detailing the superintendent's various dealings with education technology companies, including one where he asked to become CEO after securing them a deal with CMS, and that he was under FBI investigation. The Charlotte Observer, Oct. 9, 2019
Selected Stories
Trump slashed teacher training, citing DEI. Educators say the grants fought staff shortages — In Feb., with little notice, the Trump administration cancelled hundreds of millions in grants to train and retain teachers for violating new anti-DEI standards. But on the ground, the money funded senior teachers, college scholarships and professional development programs now at risk of ending. The Associated Press, March 6, 2025
A digital divide haunts schools adapting to virus hurdles — As the omicron variant disrupted yet another school year, large swaths of children remained underconnected from classes, lacking enough devices or bandwidth to log on to sudden remote learning. The Associated Press, Jan. 15, 2022
‘I am angry.’ CMS says air is safe but aging systems fall short of COVID-19 advice from CDC — CMS told the public that it was upgrading HVAC systems to make them safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. But they did not share that changes still felt short of CDC recommendations and that the 39 buildings with the most stark challenges mostly serve Black and Hispanic students. The Charlotte Observer, Sept. 15, 2020
‘It just doesn’t seem right.’ Atrium Health reduces nurses’ hours amid coronavirus crisis — As its leaders praised healthcare workers' response to the pandemic, Atrium — the biggest medical provider in the Charlotte region — cut its staff's hours while maintaining millions in unrestricted reserves. The Charlotte Observer, April 22, 2020
‘Difficult choices’: Why CMS was the only district excluded from additional COVID-19 funding — In allocating coronavirus relief funding, state officials used a formula that excluded a single, high-poverty school district from supplemental relief money. The Charlotte Observer, April 7, 2020
Essays and other reporting
70 years ago, school integration was a dream many believed could actually happen. It hasn’t — For the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board, I wrote about the hopes, dreams and shortcomings of the country's attempts to address segregation in schools and what is required of a path forward. The Associated Press, May 20th, 2024