Reta Ismail
Reta Ismail is a news anchor with CTV News London whose reporting centres on how education policy, governance and funding decisions play out in publicly funded schools and post-secondary institutions. She tracks the link between provincial rules, school board management and the conditions facing students, teachers and staff. Her work blends accountability reporting with on-the-ground stories, often using interviews and explainer segments to connect complex decisions to everyday school life.
Education governance and provincial policy
Ismail covers changes to education governance with a focus on who holds power over local schools and how that affects democratic oversight. Her reporting on provincial reconsideration of school board governance explains proposals that would allow elected officials to be removed by the government and highlights criticism of those moves as a threat to democratic principles.
She examines the tension between growing investments in education and a shrinking governance structure, pressing provincial decision-makers on how funding levels intersect with accountability.
Her interview with the education minister brings ministerial talking points into direct contact with local concerns, giving viewers both the official position and the structural changes behind it. Across these stories, she treats governance as a live issue for classrooms rather than an abstract policy debate, showing how board structures and provincial authority shape what happens in schools.
School board deficits and accountability
Ismail devotes significant coverage to the finances and management of school boards, particularly large deficits and the audits that uncover how they arose.
Her reporting on a major deficit at a regional school board details accusations of mismanagement and underfunding, showing how financial decisions at the top translate into pressure on programs and staffing. Follow-up stories on an “egregious” audit dig into unauthorized raises and governance failures, treating audit findings as a starting point for broader questions about accountability in public education. She presents these pieces with clear numbers and specific findings, avoiding abstract language and focusing on who made decisions, how they were justified and what oversight exists.
By returning to the same board over multiple stories, she builds a continuing narrative that tracks whether promised reforms and funding changes address the problems identified.
Classroom rules, unions and e-learning
Ismail often frames classroom policies through the perspectives of educators and unions, particularly around technology use and mandatory online learning. In coverage of students returning to school under new rules and expired teacher contracts, she reports how local union leaders criticize provincial funding levels and working conditions while continuing to teach without a collective agreement. Her explainer on the teachers’ federation position that any change to a school cellphone ban should coincide with ending mandatory e-learning captures the union’s argument that technology policies cannot be separated from broader debates about online instruction and resources. These stories combine interviews with educators and union officials with clear summaries of new rules, giving viewers enough detail to understand what is changing and why frontline staff object or support the changes. The emphasis is consistently on how policies shape daily classroom realities rather than on political theatre alone.
Human stories in education and community leadership
Alongside governance and policy, Ismail profiles people whose lives intersect with education institutions and local leadership. Her coverage of a 102-year-old Second World War veteran receiving an honorary doctorate from a university uses the ceremony to show how institutions recognize lifelong contributions and connect them to their educational mission. She has also highlighted regional leaders being recognized nationally, such as a local executive named among Canada’s most powerful women, drawing out how individual achievement is linked to organizational and community impact.
Beyond education-specific stories, her work as host of a conversational program brings in mayors and other difference makers to discuss issues including housing, homelessness and the state of downtown cores, situating schools within a wider civic context.
Earlier in her career she worked as a reporter, videographer and weather specialist, and those production and on-air roles inform a style that mixes live reporting, interviews and longer-form conversations. Across these pieces, she maintains a straight, factual tone while giving space to personal narratives that show how policy and institutions are experienced by individuals.
Anchoring and format
Ismail anchors the weekday six o’clock newscast for CTV News London while continuing to report on education and broader public-interest stories.
Her anchoring role sits alongside field reporting, allowing her to introduce and contextualize complex education coverage for a general audience. She draws on more than a decade in broadcasting across producing, videography, weather and reporting to shift between short daily news pieces, in-depth accountability stories and extended interviews.
Whether covering school board finances, new provincial rules, or recognition of community leaders, she keeps language direct and relies on documented facts, audits and interviews rather than commentary. The distinguishing feature of her coverage is the consistent thread from policy and governance down to the people affected, with education as the main lens but a clear awareness of the wider civic environment around schools and universities.
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.