Mary Lett
Mary Lett covers how education and youth-focused institutions shape opportunity, with a consistent focus on the systems, programs and decisions that affect students, families and the wider community. Her work at the Pensacola News Journal follows school districts, training pipelines, health initiatives and cultural resources in detail, showing how each one contributes to youth development rather than treating education as an isolated beat. She reports in straightforward, explanatory pieces that connect policy moves and program design to concrete outcomes, whether that is a school closing, a new scholarship or a shift in local TV programming.
School performance, enrollment and leadership decisions
Lett’s core reporting tracks public school systems through performance metrics, enrollment trends and leadership changes.
She has covered Santa Rosa County District Schools receiving another A grade, giving readers clear context on how district-level results fit into the broader accountability framework. In Escambia County, she has reported on hundreds of students leaving the schools each year, explaining the enrollment losses in specific numbers and tying them to financial and operational pressures on the district. Her coverage of the closure of Lincoln Park and Warrington elementary schools follows the School Attendance Zone Advisory Committee process closely, detailing enrollment thresholds, cost savings and consolidation plans rather than framing the issue only as a community controversy.
Leadership and safety inside schools are recurring subjects. Lett has introduced new principals and administrators at Escambia schools ahead of each fall term, outlining where they will serve and how leadership changes fit into broader district priorities. She has also covered an online threat at Ransom Middle School that was deemed noncredible, emphasizing what authorities verified, how the district communicated with families and what steps were taken to restore a sense of safety.
Across these stories, she treats school systems as complex organizations, balancing individual school narratives with district-wide data and decision-making.
Education-to-career pipelines and workforce training
Lett frequently follows programs that connect education to careers and public service, with an emphasis on concrete training models and funding structures. Her reporting on the George Stone marine services program describes how the initiative does more than fill a workforce gap, focusing on how students gain specific skills that translate into jobs and long-term careers. In another piece, she covers Escambia County’s partnership with Pensacola State College to train and fill paramedic slots, spelling out scholarship terms, work commitments and the county’s strategy to build a sustainable pipeline of emergency medical professionals.
Her work extends to health and fitness programs that sit at the intersection of education, training and recovery.
In a story on the UWF Home Base program, Lett shows how a university-hosted initiative offers veterans structured health and healing, treating the campus as a site for both physical training and community support. These pieces share an approach: they explain not just that a program exists, but how it operates, who it serves and what long-term outcomes - jobs, credentials, stability - the program is designed to produce.
Health, mental health and support around students
Lett’s education coverage routinely includes health and mental health infrastructure that surrounds students and families. In reporting on a new psychiatry residency pipeline aimed at boosting local mental healthcare, she connects graduate medical training to access for young people and their families, highlighting how increased psychiatric capacity can support schools and youth-serving organizations.
When she examines the UWF Home Base program for veterans, she frames it not only as a fitness initiative but as part of the region’s broader network of support services, showing how educational institutions host programs that address trauma, recovery and long-term wellbeing.
These health-focused stories maintain the same explanatory tone as her school coverage.
Lett spends space on structure - how residencies are funded, where training occurs, what commitments participants make - and then draws a line to impact, such as reduced wait times for care or expanded counseling options that can touch students and their households. The result is education reporting that treats health as a critical piece of the environment in which children learn, rather than a separate policy silo.
Media, arts and the public education landscape
Lett also reports on cultural and policy forces that shape what young people see, learn and have access to outside the classroom.
Her coverage of the WSRE TV station lineup without PBS explains how the loss of PBS programming affects viewers, especially in terms of educational content, and examines the station’s revised schedule in practical detail. In a related story on PBS returning to the area, she traces the role of concerned citizens in reversing the decision and restoring programming, linking local advocacy to the educational media environment available to families.
On the arts side, Lett has written about Hive Arts Academy’s planned $2 million Eastside campus, focusing on how the new facility is designed to expand access to arts education, culinary training, workforce development and mentorship for young people.
She describes the campus plan - studio and classroom buildings, makerspace, demonstration kitchen and student gallery - as part of a broader effort to use creative education as a catalyst for neighborhood investment. At the state policy level, her reporting on a proposed “10-year public education renaissance” plan in Florida outlines how political vision for schools and funding could reshape opportunities over the long term, bringing legislative ambitions into the same frame as local classrooms and programs. Taken together, these stories show Lett’s particular interest in the ecosystem around formal schooling: television stations, arts campuses and state education plans that collectively define what “education” looks like for the community.
Across beats - from school board decisions to workforce pipelines, health infrastructure and cultural institutions - Mary Lett’s coverage keeps youth development at the center, treating each story as part of a larger map of how systems support or fail the next generation.
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.
Abril Preciado
Abril Preciado is an Emmy award-winning bilingual television journalist at FOX6 News Milwaukee who focuses on education, school crises and policy decisions affecting students, families and staff. She follows school communities over months, from emergency response through investigations, relocation plans and the first day back in class. Her reporting on the Lincoln Avenue School fire covers displacement, safety changes, rebuilding and the move to temporary space. She also uses public records to examine local officials, test official claims and connect government conduct to public trust. Before joining FOX6, she reported for Univision in Sacramento, covering the Farm Workers March, wildfires, politics and the Latino community, and contributed border reporting for a national radio network. She centers families, explains complex decisions clearly and focuses on the human effects of policy.
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.