Learning From My Mistakes

It's a subject I've been trying to cover for more than half a year now...the Columbia Public School District. Ever since I was told to pick a beat in my reporting class, I've tried to do education stories. After all, it is the thing I'm most interested in as a reporter. I'm not sure why I love education so much. Maybe it's because I just got out of high school, and I know the types of struggles teachers go through and the types of administrative decisions principals have to make. For whatever the reason, it's something I've tried to get fairly involved in.

The school boundary scenarios is probably the biggest school story I've ever covered. After all, this story affects more than just teachers. It affects most parents in the city of Columbia. When you've got an issue that affects people in that big of a way, you know it's going to be a big story. The redistricting of school boundaries is always going to be a controversial issue. It happened when I was a senior in the North Kansas City School District. It was something I tried to stay on top of because I also love geography. I guess that's another reason why doing a story on the school district boundaries was a perfect fit for me.

North Kansas City School District

It soon became a challenge though and one that wasn't easy to get through. I thought I had a really good story on the Thornbrook neighborhood worried about their kids not going to Rock Bridge. However, that was not in Columbia Public School's plans. Neither scenario A, B, or C had Thornbrook in the Hickman school district. It was all in the Rock Bridge. So when the day came that Columbia Public Schools announced its three scenarios, I wasn't really planned for what came to be. I started to think. I had shot an entire story based around the worries of one neighborhood. It turns out, they had nothing to worry about. However, I wasn't about to give up the story yet.

 Thornbrook neighborhood

That turned out to be a bad idea though. I pressed Don Ludwig, Committee Chair of the Redistricting Committee. He was not happy with me to say the least. I kept asking him questions about the Thornbrook neighborhood because that's what my story was going to be based around. After the interview though and taking a step back, I realized I can't do a story on rumors. Rumors cannot be proven. Therefore, you don't know what's true and what's false. Basically, if I wanted to do that story, it needed to be done before CPS released their boundary scenarios. I think it would have been a really good story, but it no longer can be done.

 Don Ludwig

To sum things up, there was no reason for me to press Ludwig on Thornbrook. I need to learn when to stop pushing people, and I have not done that yet. Basically, do not push people unless you have to. I could have burned some bridges in CPS that I really did not have to. Before I did the interview, I should have taken a step back and realized what I was doing. If I had done that, I might not have made the mistake I did.

What do you think? Am I on the right track by taking a step back? Leave me a comment.