By: Nick Anschultz | Report for America Corps Member
Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) – with more than 23,000 students and more than 40 traditional schools and centers – has hard work ahead. It’s reorganizing and closing schools while also searching for a new permanent superintendent and confronting steady defections to private schools, charters and homeschooling.
Editor: Chris Worthington
Chris Worthington is a veteran journalist who most recently led APM Reports, a nonprofit investigative and documentary newsroom that produced numerous change-making stories. The work he directed has been honored with multiple national awards, including the first George Polk Award given to a news investigation presented as a podcast. Season 2 of that podcast – “In the Dark” – which he launched and oversaw, was the driving force behind a man being freed from death row. Worthington also directed the reporting in Season 1 of the investigative podcast “Sold a Story,” which examined how children are taught to read and prompted changes to mandates for reading instruction in 30 states. Worthington worked at newspapers in New York, Dallas, Florida, was the managing editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press and then joined public radio, where he directed news at Minnesota Public Radio News before founding APM Reports. He has also served as consulting editor at the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists. Worthington received a B.A. at the University of Southern California and an MBA from the University of Dallas.
Top image: Board Chair Thomas Vu more money needs to go into the classroom, teachers and programs for students.Photo by Nick Anschultz