Emily Fagan
Emily Fagan examines how decisions inside public institutions change what people actually receive from schools and social programs. Her reporting for the CBC tracks the fine detail of governance, funding and policy, with a repeated focus on the practical impact on students, families and people relying on government benefits. She brings experience across Canadian newsrooms and digital outlets, giving her coverage of education and public supports a broad view of how policy and bureaucracy translate into daily life.
School boards, trustees and student programs
Fagan’s education reporting follows the politics and process inside school boards, especially when governance decisions affect core student programs. In her coverage of the reinstated Greater Victoria school trustees, she documents how the board’s first meeting back was used to unwind an appointed trustee’s earlier cuts to student programs and policy changes. She highlights concrete steps, such as reversing program reductions and restoring systems that track student interactions with law enforcement, to show how abstract power struggles translate into on-the-ground changes for students.
This work positions her firmly on the intersection of education policy, student safety and accountability in school district decision-making.
Access to education and student financial support
Beyond school boards, Fagan reports on how wider government and labour disputes affect students’ ability to access education and financial support.
In her coverage of the BCGEU strike’s impact on British Columbians, she details how StudentAid B.C. took its online application and payment system offline, leaving post-secondary students without timely financial support at the start of a semester. The piece ties labour action to specific consequences for students, showing how a strike can disrupt not just services but the delicate timing of tuition payments, living costs and grant disbursements. Her attention to these operational effects marks a consistent interest in the mechanics of access, not just the politics of the dispute.
Public benefits, disability and the cost of bureaucracy
Fagan’s work also follows the financial and bureaucratic barriers facing people who depend on public benefits outside the classroom.
In her reporting on disability tax credits, she shows how critical these credits are for some Canadians while outlining how companies charge thousands of dollars to help applicants navigate the process. The story scrutinizes the cottage industry around benefit applications, where high fees can erode the value of the support people are trying to secure.
By focusing on costs, intermediaries and the complexity of forms, her coverage treats policy as something lived in invoices and paperwork rather than only in legislation.
Experience across outlets
Fagan is a CBC News journalist with prior experience as a staff reporter at the Toronto Star and in reporting and production roles at the CBC. Her work has appeared in national and international outlets including the Globe and Mail, Vice and the Washington Post, extending her reporting on Canadian institutions to wider audiences. That mix of local governance stories, national policy pieces and cross-outlet experience underpins a beat defined less by a single sector than by a recurring concern: how systems designed to support education and vulnerable people can be shaped, constrained or undermined by the decisions of those in power.
4 more education journalists.
Abby Russchen
Abby Russchen ties education, community institutions and individual stories together, showing how policies and decisions register in people’s lives. She reports for CBC on education and community life, working across text, video and photography for different CBC platforms. Her education coverage centres student achievement, provincial and national test results, classroom technology and the forces shaping learning conditions, connecting policy language and expert analysis to observable changes in performance. She treats AI, screens and digital tools as part of the education beat, focusing on their impact on student well-being. She also reports on community institutions and local services, from bank closures and changing city status to small-business growth. Her human-interest features follow people, public memory and recognition, and her long-form background supports detailed, fact-grounded narratives across formats.
Alexa Phillips
Alexa Phillips reports on education as a financial system, tracing who pays, who benefits and who bears the risk when policy changes reshape schools and universities. She covers education policy, funding and regulation for The i Paper, with a consistent focus on money, power and their impact on students and staff. Her reporting follows fees, budgets and reform into classrooms and lecture halls, using concrete figures to show how tax changes, funding mechanisms and loan reforms translate into course cuts, job losses and access. Phillips brings wider experience on public services and regulation, including work on gambling oversight and healthcare access, so education sits in a larger accountability story. She writes straightforward, reported news pieces that combine policy detail, financial data and case studies, built from official records and regular call‑outs to readers affected by the systems she covers.
Alexandra Holyk
Alexandra Holyk is a multi-skilled journalist at CTV News who reports on education and youth issues through the daily lives of students, families, and local communities. She covers school and campus decisions, student safety, youth behaviour, and neighbourhood incidents, with a focus on how they affect the people directly involved. Her work includes stories on graduation choices, concerns about Black students in a school board, federal research funding at the University of Waterloo, and students who helped after a cyclist collision. She also covers vandalism and other local disruptions around schools and neighbourhoods. Holyk pitches, researches, shoots, writes, edits, and presents stories for broadcast and digital platforms. Her previous work includes video journalism for provincial coverage, along with reporting for campus and regional outlets and major Canadian newspapers and business media.
Annabelle Olivier
Annabelle Olivier ties system-level themes in Quebec’s school system to the immediate realities of parents and students, treating education as a lived experience rather than an abstract policy field. She is a digital journalist with CBC News, covering education and related public policy. Her work spans data breaches and digital privacy in schools, institutional conflicts and labour disputes that disrupt study plans, education on the campaign trail, and school infrastructure and land use. She reports on incidents like mass emails exposing sensitive parent data, suspended classes that leave students feeling like bargaining chips, and proposals to turn racetracks into schools. Her background in digital production at another major Canadian broadcaster shapes an online-first reporting style, grounded in specific incidents, clear descriptions, and detailed, verifiable facts drawn from documents, statements and interviews.