How many counties and cities does Cardinal News cover?
Go ahead, take a guess.
Here’s a hint: It’s probably more than you’re thinking.
The answer: 58.
(Sometimes, we tack on a few more if we’re doing a deep dive with statewide impact, such as our State of Surveillance series.)
As Cardinal’s education reporter, that means my coverage spans nearly five dozen public school divisions. When you add in community colleges and four-year college campuses, that adds 25 schools to my list.
Yeah. It’s a lot.
This summer, I started wondering how many of those colleges and school divisions I could write about in one year. Could I meaningfully include each of them in my articles, at least once?
The idea started bubbling up when I found out how much Norton City Schools had improved attendance over a single year. I wanted to learn how they did it.
I love getting to meet the subjects of a story in person, but it’s not always as feasible as I’d like it to be. So I conducted interviews by phone and Zoom and asked administrators and community partners to send me photos of their work in action.
Readers wrote in to share their appreciation for that article, including one teacher who planned to share Norton’s tactics with her principal in a county located hours away.
A few weeks later, a retired Rockbridge County teacher wrote to me. “I know we are on the very northern edge of your coverage area,” her email started. She wanted me to know about the recently renovated career and technical education center attached to the county high school, and why she thought it was important to the local community.
My latest article offers a look at that CTE facility and how its programs are striving to meet workforce needs in the area.
So that’s two school divisions I hadn’t written about before. What’s a few (dozen) more?
Please help me achieve this highly ambitious personal goal. I may not be able to mark off every location on my list, but there’s absolutely no downside to trying.
Send me your tips, whether you’re an instructor, staff member, administrator, parent, student or community member. Send me your questions, your concerns and your wins large and small. Send me the unsung heroes in your education community.
Next summer, we’ll check back in to see how I did.
This isn’t a one-time request — I hope you’ll feel welcome to reach out all year long.
Here’s how to reach me:
- Our tips form: If you want to be anonymous, this is the best way to reach me and the rest of the Cardinal team. We don’t require any personal information, and the form doesn’t collect your email address.
- Email: I’m at lisa@cardinalnews.org.
- Instagram: I don’t post often, and when I do, it’s mostly pictures of cats. I do, however, read my direct messages.
