Check out some of the impact my work has had.
Spurring student activism & a U.S. Department of Education investigation.
When I used my public records skills to reveal how many times a school district exposed transgender students’ gender identities to their parents, I was the first reporter to quantify how a hotly-debated policy was panning out for students.
Outraged by my findings, a group of students in the district used my report to file a civil rights complaint to the U.S. Department of Education — which opened an investigation into the alleged discrimination.
Read about this impact here.
Sharing lessons from my reporting.
I love making what I learn through my work accessible to wider audiences.
I’ve shared lessons from my work on panels for the Education Writers Association, The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists, Advance Local, and the Associated Collegiate Press.
I also regularly partner with other media outlets to share my reporting — I’ve been a guest on the Texas Tribune’s TribCast, Civic Media, City Cast Houston, Houston Public Media, Texas Standard and more.
Encouraging civic engagement and driving policy change
My work often encourages community members or leaders to action to advocate for change or a solution.
A few examples:
My work brought together nearly a dozen residents in a low-income neighborhood who rallied for a better solution to their flooding woes.
It led a college to reimburse dozens of students the thousands of dollars they lost on an abruptly-cancelled trip.
It armed students with information about budget cuts at their schools, which led a student to form a student advocacy group. He told me, “you were just as much a part of the movement as I was. Your reporting means a lot to our community.”
And it led a group of high schoolers to file a federal civil rights complaint.
