Jessica Bakeman
Education reporterJessica Bakeman is an investigative reporter and editor focusing on K-12 and higher education for WLRN, South Florida's NPR member station. Bakeman was awarded the 2020 Journalist of the Year award from the Florida chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Bakeman is the editor and project manager of Class of COVID-19: An Education Crisis for Florida's Vulnerable Students, a comprehensive multimedia series from Florida Public Media examining how the pandemic upended public education statewide. Published in spring 2021 with support from a competitive Education Writers Association fellowship, Class of COVID-19 includes a radio documentary, an hourlong television special and a limited-run newsletter.
Bakeman also reported and produced WLRN's 2019 audio documentary and investigative series, Chartered: Florida's First Private Takeover Of A Public School System, which earned a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for news documentary and an honorable mention for the inaugural Esserman-Knight Journalism Prize.
Bakeman won national first-place awards for audio storytelling in 2019 and education beat reporting in 2018 from the Education Writers Association. Other honors include a Salute to Excellence award from the National Association of Black Journalists and a Journalism Award of Excellence from the American College of Emergency Physicians, both for work in 2018.
Previously, Bakeman helped establish POLITICO's national network of state capital coverage, serving as an original member of the company's bureaus in both Albany, N.Y., and Tallahassee, Fla. She also covered New York state politics for The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
Bakeman is the past president of the Capitol Press Club of Florida, a nonprofit organization that raises money for college scholarships benefiting journalism students. Also, she twice chaired a planning committee for the New York State Legislative Correspondents Association's annual political satire show, the oldest of its kind in the country.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and English literature from SUNY Plattsburgh, a public liberal arts college in northeastern New York. She proudly hails from Rochester, N.Y.
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A local student is a finalist in an international braille literacy competition. The Braille Challenge encourages blind and visually impaired kids to go to college, develop job skills and socialize. -
The statewide chapter of No Kid Hungry, a national organization tackling childhood food insecurity, has seen more requests for grants to support transporting food directly to students and families.
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The aftermath of Parkland. How to manage COVID-19. Escalating racial tensions. These are just some of the challenges Donald Fennoy has faced in his time leading the Palm Beach County school district. WLRN spoke with Palm Beach Post reporter Andrew Marra about the superintendent's tenure.
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In South Florida, the Palm Beach County school district reported the highest percentage of students taking in-person classes and saw no decline in third graders' pass rates on state language arts tests.
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A new report from a statewide organization of education foundations cites some ideas pioneered by South Florida school districts.
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Florida International University and Broward College plan to use the unrestricted funding to boost programs for needy students.
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Education policy making has always been nonpartisan in intention but, in reality, it's getting more political.
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Samya Zia, 19, an economics major at Florida International University, won $9,000 in a national startup competition earlier this year.
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A divided school board voted after hearing from a divided public.
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WLRN asked middle and high schoolers to share messages to their future selves about what it was like to take classes during COVID-19. We talked to them about some of their responses during a live virtual field trip to the South Florida Fair.
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A grant program designed to dismantle anti-Black racism has led to a new initiative: Native American studies.
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Despite opposition from some school board members, Broward County Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie will stay on for 90 days to advise in the soon-to-be-selected interim leader's transition.
