Jessica Bakeman
Jessica Bakeman reports on K-12 and higher education for WLRN, south Florida's NPR affiliate. While new to Miami and public radio, Jessica is a seasoned journalist who has covered education policymaking and politics in three state capitals: Jackson, Miss.; Albany, N.Y.; and, most recently, Tallahassee.
Jessica first moved to the Sunshine State in 2015 to help launch POLITICO Florida as part of the company’s national expansion. She is the immediate past president of the Capitol Press Club of Florida, a nonprofit organization that raises money for college scholarships benefiting journalism students.
Jessica was an original member of POLITICO New York’s Albany bureau. Also in the Empire State, Jessica covered politics for The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. As part of Gannett’s three-person Albany bureau, she won the New York Publishers Association award for distinguished state government coverage in 2013 and 2014. Jessica twice chaired a planning committee for the Albany press corps’ annual political satire show, the oldest of its kind in the country.
She started her career at The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson. There she won the Louisiana/Mississippi Associated Press Managing Editors’ 2013 first place award for continuing coverage of former Gov. Haley Barbour’s decision to pardon more than 200 felons as he left office.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and English literature from SUNY Plattsburgh, a public liberal arts college in northeastern New York. She (proudly) hails from Rochester, N.Y.
-
When lawmakers slashed Florida's Bright Futures scholarship amounts during past difficult budget cycles, Black and Latino students lost out the most. -
A recent policy from the School District of Palm Beach County bans homemade desk shields, citing fire codes. -
Broward County Public Schools was the last district in the state to bring students back into classrooms. -
Miami-Dade County Public Schools and local news outlets have reported at least three cases of COVID-19 among students in the district, and the superintendent said there might be more. -
Miami-Dade Superintendent Says 'We Are In A Good Place' With School Reopening. Many Teachers DisagreAs students return to Miami-Dade County Public Schools classrooms for the first time since mid-March, teachers are raising concerns about safety and logistics. -
University of Miami President Julio Frenk says the Coral Gables private school is successfully “slowing the spread” of coronavirus, citing two days in the… -
The Broward County School Board reached a compromise with state education officials: Instead of an Oct. 5 return, students will come back into classrooms in phases from Oct. 9-15. -
Teachers get money from the state to spend on their classrooms — but some pandemic must-haves are off limits. -
After a threatening letter from the Florida education commissioner, the Miami-Dade school board voted to open schools Monday, Oct. 5. -
Subcontracted janitors at the University of Miami say they want gowns and hazmat suits to clean areas of the campus that are suspected to be contaminated with the coronavirus.
