Suburban Education Reporter

Opening Statement: We are seeking an aggressive, enterprising reporter to cover Houston area suburban schools, including the sprawling Katy, Fort Bend, and Cypress-Fairbanks school districts, which are among the largest districts in Texas. Many of the highest profile education issues in the country are playing out in these districts, and we need a reporter to cover these stories with that kind of ambition and sophistication. These are among the fastest-growing communities in the state, and education is front-and-center for many residents of these communities. We need a reporter to match that interest with stories that are illuminating, engaging and most importantly, essential.

What will you do?

Be a tough-minded reporter who is as comfortable digging into budgets and filing data requests as they are learning about how classroom education is changing and how teachers and families are adapting.
Juggle daily and enterprise stories that dig into educational effectiveness, explore the complex social and mental health needs of students, examine the safety concerns of suburban campuses and serve as the watchdog to these districts’ growing budgets and development plans.
Explore how these suburban schools have become the epicenter of a roiling national debate about homeschooling, charter schools, private schools and possibly vouchers
Engage the audience in news ways. Help parents make educational choices through a variety of utility content. Answer the questions that parents have right now. Tell parents how to enroll students in high-performing schools, get special education services or become more involved in their local schools. These utility stories are as important as reporting on policy and bureaucracy.
Produce a steady drumbeat of stories of varying lengths and formats, including short-term and long-term enterprise stories; “key takeaways” and live coverage of school board meetings and events
Write with clarity, precision, and authority, avoiding government and educational jargon