I interned at Chalkbeat Detroit in summer 2024 where I covered Detroit schools and Michigan education policy. I wrote about how the city and state can ensure students succeed, including:

• How DPSCD will invest in early literacy education using settlement funds from a literacy lawsuit.

• A summer institute of teachers learning about democracy in education.

• A new DPSCD initative to pay some high school students to attend literacy intervention sessions, and how the program can best serve high school students.

Interviewing a source at a Detroit Parent Network event for Chalkbeat Detroit. Photo by Ken Coleman.

I was an active Detroit Documenter for nearly three years, covering government meetings ranging from the Board of Police Commissioners, City Planning Commission, and City Council. I broke several pieces of news documenting public meetings, including when:

• The Detroit Water and Sewage Department introduced the Lifeline Plan, an income-based water affordability plan.

• A bus company contracted by DPSCD dropped a student with a disability at the wrong bus stop, adding to an existing track record of contracted bus companies mistreating students with disabilities in the district.

• The Board of Zoning Appeals denied a polluting concrete crusher in Detroit’s Core City neighborhood.