Education

Accepting the Torch

By Nora Fleming — March 23, 2011 1 min read
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Hello all. Today, I take over full responsibility for the Beyond School blog here at Education Week. Even though I’ve been contributing entries on this blog since December, I haven’t formally introduced myself.

I come from a family with many members who are involved or have been involved in some facet of education—from state department of education employees to principals to teachers to special education instructors. I myself spent some time working in out-of-school-time programs, as well as serving as a counselor in a school in Los Angeles through AmeriCorps, but most of my work experience and education background have focused on journalism. I worked at several publications, including as a reporter for a local newspaper in California. I ended up covering the school district/education beat for a while and became hooked on writing about education. Because I wanted to pursue a career in writing about education—and Washington is where so many important policy decisions are made—I moved back to the East Coast.

After-school and out-of-school-time policy issues strike a personal note as well. In addition to working in a few programs as a counselor and instructor years ago, with two working parents, I myself attended after-school programs throughout elementary school. I was fortunate to have access to high-quality programs, as well as extracurricular lessons and sports, and many, many summer programs from elementary through high school, such as pre-college programs at universities. But I am aware that many children have not had and do not have that kind of access. Knowing how significantly those out-of-school experiences helped develop my own interests and sense of self as a child and young adult, I feel privileged to explore this topic further on the blog.

And if you can help—with comments, suggestions, you name it —all the better. Feel free to email me at nfleming@epe.org.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Beyond School blog.