Simone Roberts
Simone Roberts is a reporter at Live 5 News, where she covers education and its connections to community life, public services and local infrastructure. Her work follows how schools, nonprofit programs and public agencies shape opportunities for students and families, with repeated attention to funding, facilities and support systems. She joined the newsroom in October 2025 and brings earlier reporting and anchoring experience into her daily beat.
Education funding, facilities and student support
Roberts treats education as a full ecosystem, not just classrooms and test scores. She has covered a major expansion at R.B.
Stall High School, tracking a $54 million construction project and how school leaders expect the new space to change the student experience.
Ahead of a new academic year, she reported on more than $11 million in commitments by the Charleston County School District across special education, teacher development and mental health programs, framing the district’s budget decisions through their impact on support for students and staff. Her coverage extends to alternative models of schooling, including a charter school designed for at-risk students opening in North Charleston, where she focuses on how the program aims to reach young people who have struggled in traditional settings.
She regularly returns to stories where education intersects with daily life and habit. At the College of Charleston, she highlighted an “unplug week” campaign that asks students and faculty to step away from their phones, using the event to explore digital dependence on campus and efforts to reset it through structured breaks. In another piece, she documented new eco-education signs at the Isle of Palms public dock, explaining how the signage teaches visitors about salt marshes, local birds and marine life while reinforcing the area’s role as an outdoor classroom.
Her reporting on a nonprofit opening a new home for young mothers shows the educational thread clearly: the program is built to help participants finish school, raise their children and prepare for independent living, and she follows how that support structure works in practice.
Community health and social services
Roberts’ education beat often widens into community health and social support, especially where access gaps affect families and children. She has reported on American Red Cross warnings about blood supply shortages, covering both an early summer drop in donations and later updates that supplies have improved but remain vulnerable, while underscoring the stakes for area hospitals.
Her coverage of Dorchester County’s community paramedic program traces how the initiative served more than 1,200 residents in its first year and why officials decided to add a second paramedic, emphasizing home visits and outreach to people who struggle to reach traditional care.
She frequently spotlights services that lower barriers for residents.
One story details a North Charleston community center offering free legal services for a day in partnership with a pro bono program, and she focuses on the practical mechanics of who can attend, what issues lawyers address and how often such help is available. Her reporting on the Lowcountry Food Bank’s Rise and Shine summer food drive follows the campaign’s timeline and fundraising goal of $75,000, tying it to childhood hunger and the need for consistent access to food outside the school year.
A separate piece on a new emergency room opening after a two-year wait shows the same concern with access: she explains how the freestanding facility fits into regional coverage and what it means for patients who previously had fewer nearby options.
Environment, infrastructure and public safety
Roberts covers environment and infrastructure stories through their impact on the communities that live with them.
On Kiawah Island, she reported on an agreement that moves a stretch of coastline known as Captain Sams Spit closer to permanent protection from development, laying out how local government and state agencies coordinated to secure conservation for the area. She has also followed the surge in fire truck costs and long wait times for deliveries, explaining how local fire departments now budget years in advance, what doubling prices mean for small agencies and how multi-year waits affect emergency readiness.
Housing and safety appear alongside environmental themes in her work. She has covered an affordable housing program for first responders on the Isle of Palms, noting how the initiative is structured and why officials say they are targeting those workers. At the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition, she highlighted wildlife conservation and education as central goals of the event, tying them to the large crowds of families and enthusiasts who attend.
A human-interest piece on a Vietnam veteran handcrafting free canes for fellow veterans shows the same attention to everyday tools and safety, as she documents the craft, the distribution of the canes and the personal motivation behind the work.
Events and initiatives linking schools and community life
Many of Roberts’ stories sit at the junction of education, civic events and community identity. She has covered the First Day Festival, a back-to-school event that offers free school supplies, backpacks and aquarium admission, explaining how the city and partners use the festival to ease the financial burden of the new year for families. Her reporting on Labor Day travel explores the business boost from tourism, tying the influx of visitors to broader conversations about economic activity and the services needed to support it.
In pieces about eco-signs at public docks and wildlife expositions, she shows how environmental education is woven into public spaces and seasonal events, making learning part of recreation.
She also returns to stories about communication and voice, including coverage of a spelling-based method that helps non-verbal autistic children and young adults express themselves through keyboards and letter boards, filling gaps left by traditional education and therapy. Across these varied assignments, Roberts’ work is defined by a consistent focus on how programs, policies and physical spaces shape the lives of students, families and vulnerable residents, and by detailed reporting on the institutions and initiatives that attempt to meet those needs.
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.