Kelsey Souto
Kelsey Souto follows the power and accountability fights around Fayette County Public Schools, tracking how leadership decisions, budgets and outside reviews shape the district’s future. She is a television journalist for WKYT whose work centers on education, with a particular focus on the school board, the superintendent and the district’s central office. Her coverage blends live, unfolding reporting with close reading of documents, meeting agendas and financial figures so viewers can see not just what happened, but what it means for the school system.
Fayette County school leadership and oversight
Souto treats the Fayette County Public Schools superintendent’s office and the elected board as an ongoing beat rather than a series of one-off stories. She follows personnel and leadership questions closely, including coverage of Superintendent Demetrus Liggins as he considers a possible new job in Missouri and the implications for the district he would leave behind. When questions arise over documents and conduct, she stays with the story, reporting on surveillance that showed the superintendent slipping a paper under a door and the subsequent decision to place him on leave amid defamation concerns. She is also present when district leaders face the press, covering media briefings after contentious board meetings and relaying how officials defend or explain their actions.
Board meetings are a recurring frame for her education reporting. Ahead of key votes, she previews what is on the agenda, such as a 2027 budget discussion that put long-term spending priorities into public view. During and after those meetings, she highlights what was decided, how board members aligned or split, and what issues are likely to return, building a running narrative of governance rather than isolated snapshots.
Budgets, audits and how school money is spent
Souto’s education coverage often turns on school finances and how district leaders justify their use of public funds. She reports on Fayette County’s multi-year budgets, drawing out specific line items and carry-forward balances so audiences see the scale of money at stake, not just broad totals. In her reporting on an external firm conducting an audit of the district and asking for more money, she focuses on what the auditor was hired to do, why the work is expanding and how much additional funding is being requested, tying the contract back to broader debates over accountability and oversight within the school system. She treats numbers as central to the story, not as afterthoughts, and connects them to classroom and community impact.
That same attention to detail appears when she explains how financial decisions intersect with leadership questions. Coverage of the superintendent and board does not stop at personalities; she emphasizes what leadership changes could mean for ongoing audits, future budgets and the district’s ability to follow through on long-term plans. Her work on education finance reads as sustained scrutiny of a public institution, returning to the same contracts, reserves and spending proposals over time.
Streaming news, live updates and explainers
In addition to traditional newscasts, Souto is a regular presence on WKYT’s streaming programming, where she uses longer segments to walk through complex education stories. On the station’s Afternoon Rundown, she previews upcoming Fayette County school board meetings, explains what viewers should watch for and then follows up with what happened and what remains unresolved. These segments often combine on-set discussion with clips and graphics, allowing her to break down budgets, contracts and leadership developments in plain language and at a more deliberate pace than a standard short package.
Her streaming work is not limited to education, and she frequently handles breaking or developing news from other beats, such as live updates from troopers after a body was found in Laurel County. Even in those general assignment moments, she keeps the same update-driven structure she uses on school stories, moving from what is confirmed to what investigators or officials are doing next. The result is a style that carries over into her education beat: clear staging of what is known, what is being investigated and when the public will learn more.
Education in the wider community
Souto also covers education as it plays out beyond the school district’s central office, spending time with community institutions that provide learning and cultural programs. She has highlighted public library initiatives, sitting down with staff to discuss an upcoming “Americans” themed program and using the conversation to connect local events to broader historical and civic topics. Segments like these focus less on conflict and more on access, spotlighting how residents can engage with exhibits, talks and resources in their own community.
Across these stories, her approach is consistent: she lets officials and organizers speak at length, then distills the key takeaways into a few clear points about who is affected, how they can participate and why the program matters to local audiences. That same method underpins her harder-edged coverage of the school district, giving her education beat a range that runs from contested boardrooms to quieter, everyday places where people learn.
4 more education journalists.
Abdul Latif Jameel
Abdul Latif Jameel publishes long-form, research-led pieces on how emerging technologies and scientific advances reshape education, industry, and society. He writes for the Abdul Latif Jameel masthead at the intersection of learning, innovation, and applied science, with a focus on technology, skills, and the future of learning. He explains complex fields such as quantum sensing in clear, accessible terms, breaking down frontier science and tying it to real-world applications. His coverage links breakthroughs in sensing, data, and automation to training, curriculum, and lifelong learning. He treats education as an applied system connected to industry, policy, infrastructure, and human development. He reports in an analytical, explanatory style, using research, pilots, and large-scale initiatives to examine how technologies are implemented, evaluated, and scaled in learning and training environments.
Adria Iraheta
Adria Iraheta is a community-focused reporter at Denver7, distinct for centering students, families and residents in every story about schools, neighborhoods and public services. She covers how decisions by school districts, local agencies and public institutions land in daily life, with a particular focus on Aurora and Arapahoe County. Her beat sits at the intersection of education, community issues, public services, safety, infrastructure, health and climate, from job cuts in a school district to a new transit safety app, DMV outages, street changes and record heat waves. With a decade of local television reporting experience, she reports on the ground in specific local scenes, using plain language, direct questions to officials and clear explanations to show how policies, programs and changes affect the people who live, study and work in Colorado communities.
Alan J. Borsuk
Alan J. Borsuk stands out for connecting what happens in schools to the policy and political decisions behind them. He writes in-depth K-12 education analysis for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and serves as a senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette University Law School. His work focuses on Milwaukee Public Schools, school choice, literacy, teacher pipelines, and school accountability. He uses long-range perspective, detailed reporting, and structured analysis to explain how reforms unfold, why they stall, and what they mean for students and leaders. He has also written on vouchers, Teach for America, discipline, and teacher evaluation, drawing on decades as a reporter and editor on education and public policy.
Alexandra Hardle
Alexandra Hardle brings a watchdog lens to K-12 schools, using concrete incidents to map how district power, oversight and accountability work in real life. She covers K-12 education for The Arizona Republic, focusing on school systems, governance and the lived impact of policy on students, families and educators. Her reporting shows how school governance can fail students and staff and what that reveals about district culture. She often covers flashpoints, such as the Nazi salute fallout in the Deer Valley district, as windows into deeper dysfunction, tracking how leadership responds, how trust breaks down and how conflicts unfold in public meetings. Her work sits at the intersection of accountability reporting and community stories, grounded in public records, formal rules and multiple stakeholder perspectives, with clear, direct language that explains how institutions make decisions and how ordinary people experience them.