Zaria Oates
Zaria Oates is a news reporter at KSAT 12 who focuses her coverage on education and how school systems affect students and families. Her work is distinguished by sustained attention to accountability, tracking investigations, policy changes and funding programs that directly alter life inside Texas classrooms. She combines breaking news instincts with detailed follow-through on complex education stories, often returning to the same districts and initiatives as they evolve.
Judson ISD under investigation by state for alleged threats, failure to report child abuse
In her coverage of Judson ISD under investigation by the state for alleged threats and failure to report child abuse, Oates focuses on how serious misconduct claims inside a school district trigger scrutiny from state education officials and affect students’ safety and trust in the system.
She stays with the district beyond a single incident, reporting on board decisions such as the vote to close Judson Middle School and showing how those choices reshape attendance zones, campus utilization and the day-to-day reality for families. That continuity makes her reporting a useful lens on governance issues, connecting disciplinary investigations, campus closures and board actions into a broader picture of how one district responds to pressure.
Application portal for Texas Education Freedom Accounts opens Feb. 4
Oates covers statewide education programs with the same emphasis on clarity and impact, as seen in her reporting on the application portal for Texas Education Freedom Accounts opening on Feb. 4. In that work she explains how the program operates, what families must do to apply and the timelines that matter, turning a policy initiative into concrete steps for parents weighing school options. She focuses on the mechanics of access, outlining eligibility rules and procedures so readers understand how policy translates into individual opportunity.
Her attention to program design is matched by attention to outcomes. By highlighting application windows, required documentation and system changes over time, she positions these pieces as practical guides for families and educators navigating a shifting school-choice landscape. The coverage is direct and procedural, but always grounded in the consequences for households deciding between public, charter and private schooling.
Thousands denied Texas Education Freedom Accounts; more than 150,000 waitlisted
In her reporting that “Thousands denied Texas Education Freedom Accounts; more than 150,000 waitlisted,” Oates shifts from process to scale, emphasizing how many families are affected when a program cannot accommodate demand. She foregrounds the numbers in a plain way, using denial and waitlist figures to show where expectations for school funding and choice diverge from actual capacity. That numeric backbone supports a broader narrative about unmet need, focusing attention on students who remain in their existing schools despite seeking alternatives through the voucher-style program.
Across this strand of her work she treats data as a storytelling tool, using enrollment counts, denial tallies and waitlist totals to frame questions about equity and resource allocation. The reporting stays within the bounds of factual description, but its structure invites readers to see the policy in terms of winners, losers and those left waiting for a spot. This approach makes her education coverage particularly suited to stories that hinge on program design, capacity limits and the friction between legislative promises and lived experience.
Breaking news, community-impact stories and the military community
Professional profiles describe Oates as a reporter who covers breaking news, community-impact stories, the military community and more, and she brings that range into her education beat. She is comfortable working across platforms, from television to digital and social video, appearing in KSAT-branded clips that place her on the ground at school board meetings and community events. That presence allows her to capture immediate reactions from parents, staff and students when decisions are made, such as votes to close campuses or adjust district policies.
Oates joined KSAT 12 in June 2024 after reporting for another ABC affiliate, adding experience in fast-moving daily news to the station’s education and community coverage. She uses those breaking-news skills to anchor longer-running stories, returning to districts under investigation, programs facing capacity issues and communities adjusting to new policies. The result is a body of work that treats education as both a policy beat and a neighborhood beat, linking official decisions to the immediate effects on classrooms, families and the wider community.
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.