Jessica Bakeman
Director of Enterprise JournalismJessica Bakeman is Director of Enterprise Journalism at WLRN, South Florida's NPR member station. Bakeman oversees the station's new investigations team, and she co-edited the 2023 investigation Unguarded, examining the Guardianship Program of Dade County's real estate sales practices. Since joining WLRN in fall 2017, Bakeman has also served as senior news editor and education reporter.
Bakeman was the editor and project manager of Class of COVID-19: An Education Crisis for Florida's Vulnerable Students, a 2021 multimedia series from Florida Public Media exploring how the pandemic upended public education statewide. The project won a national Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in digital.
In 2020, she was named journalist of the year by the Florida chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Bakeman 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 Murrow for news documentary and an honorable mention for the inaugural Esserman-Knight Journalism Prize.
She won national first-place awards for audio storytelling in 2019 and education beat reporting in 2018 from the Education Writers Association.
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 a 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.
She can be reached at jbakeman@wlrnnews.org
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It's not a final decision on the question on whether facial coverings can be required in school. Legal challenges are continuing in state and federal proceedings.
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To mask or not to mask in Florida's public schools? Who gets to decide that is shaping up to be the biggest political battle in Florida this year. It's also the latest fight between state leaders and local school officials.
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South Florida students who are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 may not be able to attend school at all if their classmates aren't wearing masks, their parents argue.
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The largest school district in Florida will mandate masks for the school year that starts Monday, joining two others in defying Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
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State Sen. Shevrin Jones spent the summer touring public universities around the state.
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The chair of the Florida Board of Education said recommending that school board members are removed from office is on the table.
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Dr. Aileen Marty says Miami-Dade County is now having its worst surge since the pandemic began.
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A state judge is expected to make a quick ruling over mask mandates in Florida schools, as the state Board of Education plans its next moves. Meanwhile, Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho discussed how "difficult" the coming weeks will be in his annual back-to-school speech.
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Broward County is one of a growing number of school districts that are pushing back against Gov. Ron DeSantis' rules prohibiting mask mandates in schools.
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How will the fight over masks in Florida schools play out in courtrooms and classrooms?
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Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and anti-mask parent activists want face coverings to be optional in schools. A top pediatrician in South Florida says that means kids will "infect each other."
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The Broward County school board is defying Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis by requiring masks, triggering yet another battle between local elected officials and state leaders over COVID-19 policy.