Susan Zielinski
Susan Zielinski is a reporter for the Red Deer Advocate who covers education and public policy through the lens of how provincial decisions translate into everyday conditions in local schools and social services. Her coverage stands out for following long-running capital and policy files over time, tracking each phase from political promise to planning, design, and impact on students and families. She combines detailed attention to funding programs and timelines with consistent reporting on how vulnerable groups, including immigrant and disabled residents, experience those systems.
School construction, funding and capital plans
Zielinski devotes sustained attention to school construction and capital planning, repeatedly returning to the same projects as they move through provincial approval stages.
She has reported on Red Deer Public Schools’ three‑year capital plans, explaining how new middle schools and modernizations are ranked, the student capacity each project is intended to serve, and the approvals still outstanding. Her work on a planned middle school in the Timber Ridge area follows the project from early prioritization through accelerated provincial programs and into the design phase, highlighting both growth pressures and the need for additional classroom space.
When provincial leaders announce initiatives to build more schools or speed up approvals, she details what those decisions mean for specific divisions, campuses, and construction timelines rather than treating them as abstract policy. Across these stories she draws on board officials and divisional leadership to spell out enrollment trends, capacity constraints, and the practical impact of funding decisions on future school infrastructure.
Classrooms, policy and vulnerable students
Beyond bricks and mortar, Zielinski covers how provincial education and social policies affect students who are already in the classroom or on the margins of the system.
Her reporting on statements from the Alberta Teachers’ Association around children’s immigration status focuses on how policy debates intersect with the lived realities of students who did not choose the circumstances that shape their schooling. She has also examined changes to disability income supports, explaining how letters about eligibility for benefits such as AISH are being sent to disabled Albertans and what those notices mean for their financial security and stability. In coverage of provincial legislation restricting gender‑affirming care, she reports on legal challenges and political reactions, including criticism of court injunctions, while maintaining attention on the consequences for affected youth and families.
Across these policy pieces, her reporting is grounded in interviews with advocates, recipients and officials, situating technical changes in regulations within the daily concerns of people relying on schools and social programs.
Community stories and recognition
Zielinski’s file also includes recurring community and recognition stories that show the human side of the region she covers.
She has written about founders of a charitable organization receiving a Meritorious Service Medal, presenting their recognition in the context of longstanding local efforts and the impact of their work. Her Best of Red Deer feature on a photographer voted the city’s best shooter focuses on the craft, interactions with clients, and the small details that define a successful local business, supported by her own photography.
Earlier work includes profiling a former Alberta politician who became the oldest Canadian to summit Mount Everest, combining expedition detail with biographical background to frame the achievement.
She has covered the adoption of Segways by local RCMP, using a light news story about new equipment to illustrate how policing practices change in visible, everyday ways. These stories show her interest in individual accomplishment and community initiatives, and they sit alongside her more policy‑heavy education reporting to round out a broader picture of local life.
Workforce, manufacturing and regional development
Zielinski occasionally extends beyond schools into coverage of the broader workforce and economic environment that surrounds them.
In a piece on Alberta’s manufacturing workforce, she reports on expert warnings that immigration alone will not be enough to address labour shortages, tying those concerns to automation, skills development and regional industry events such as SmartMTX. The story combines commentary from economists with on‑the‑ground observations from exhibitors and technology providers, reflecting her tendency to link high‑level forecasts to concrete examples in local venues.
This strand of her work complements her education beat, showing how employment, training and demographic trends feed back into classrooms and community planning.
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.