Thanks to the financial support of local St. Louis Public Radio listeners, STLPR continues to expand its local news operation with two recent hires and a promotion in the station's newsroom.
STLPR’s latest education beat reporter and new digital editor gave us a peek into their work and the planning underway to make our local news reporting more robust.
Hiba Ahmad | STLPR Education Reporter
Hiba Ahmad spent most of her career working as a producer for NPR news magazines, including Weekend Edition, All Things Considered, and the daily flagship podcast Up First.
A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in broadcast journalism, she’s wrapping up her masters in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at George Mason University.
As STLPR’s new education reporter, Ahmad came to appreciate the importance of education from her reporting experience as an NPR producer during the pandemic.
“I really love booking roundtables with real people,” Ahmad said. “We kept talking about how the schools are shutting down. What does that mean?,” Ahmad said. For students. For teachers. For parents.
“And then I remember doing a call out on Twitter, and I got, just an insane number of educators get in touch with me. I remember just sitting on the phone talking to people for days thinking, this is crazy,” she said.
“I've only ever experienced education, obviously, from a student's perspective,” Ahmad said. “So it was just great to kind of pick their brains about all the ins and outs of how their work is changing, but also the way that educators play much bigger roles than just teaching, right? They're the counselors and the friends and the mentors and, you know, maybe the only other adult in the child's life that isn't their parent — a stable adult,” she said.
Covering education in St. Louis
Ahmad has only been in St. Louis a couple of weeks and she is awash in the region’s fast-moving education news ecosystem. There are the obvious stories on transportation woes and the revolving administrators at St. Louis Public Schools.
She’s also been particularly struck by the number of school closures and the loss of neighborhood schools.
“I want to understand what happens to a community when a school shuts down," she said. “Or what it is like to be a student that is one of maybe 200 or 300 students in these big, enormous, beautiful school buildings that are so grand,” but, she said, nearly empty because they’re meant for a thousand students.
“Maybe it's a building that's not as well kept because it's so big. How does that impact the way that you learn inside of that classroom?. . . And maybe the way that you feel about coming to school?”
That dovetails right into one of the other big stories in education: school absenteeism.
“I believe the last statistic I saw is that about one-fourth of students have missed school or are chronically absent, and that means [they’ve missed] about 10% of the school year . . . that's a lot of students that are still not showing up to school,” Ahmad said. It’s a problem that existed prior to the pandemic that’s only become a bigger crisis.
Covering post-pandemic education
Right now, the national trend Ahmad is most interested in covering at the local level is how educators are combating and confronting pandemic learning loss.
“I think we're continuing to see that it really, really did impact students’ learning. And that's beyond just reading and math scores. You know, obviously those are very important metrics, but it's beyond that,” she said. “During the pandemic, we got one of the largest infusions of federal dollars into the public education system, the ESSER funds, and those are now done as of the end of September,” Ahmad said.
“Those [funds] introduced some really great programs like high-dosage tutoring, which is giving kids targeted tutoring multiple times a week with a consistent tutor. And we have data that shows that actually really, really worked,” she said.
“Providing after school care programs that actually had curriculum so kids could do some more of their homework, or practice whatever remediation stuff that they needed to in a supervised way; not all schools have funding for that. “ Ahmad said.
Now that temporary infusion of dollars is gone.
“That's a tough transition for public schools. Especially for city public schools that are often dealing with these kinds of perennial challenges like underfunding.”
The big picture in education coverage
With a beat that’s so immense, spanning from kindergarten to post-secondary education and student loan forgiveness, a less seasoned reporter might wonder where to begin.
“I try to remind myself that what we're talking about here is our young kids, who are given this promise of quality and accurate education . . . that is a core part of their growing experience, right?,” she said.
“So we can talk about the culture war issues between the book banning and the criticism about curriculum, but at the end of the day . . . we have to bring the conversation back to how this filters down to the kids. Are they learning, and are they having their needs met?”
Ahmad said that means more than making sure that they're learning at grade level. “But also, are they learning how to be curious? Are they okay mentally, socially, and emotionally? Are they developing if they have learning differences? Are they getting those needs met? You know, if they need extra supports, whether it's special education or learning IEPs, do they have those resources? Do they have food? Do they have a safe place to go home to?”
How you can help
With such a huge mandate, Ahmad said it’s imperative to have a hand from the local St. Louis community — parents, teachers, and students. “That’s why I want to hear from listeners. I want to hear from the community. I really do want to be a community-led reporter,” Ahmad said. “One of my editors called it magical kid tape . . . the voices of the kids at the center of it all,” she said.
“You know, everybody says they want to send their kids to good schools. What does a good school look like to them? And how does that inform their decision about where they choose to live and where they choose to send their kids?,” she asked.
“I want people to feel like they can trust me with these stories and these kitchen table conversations,” Ahmad said. Because in the end, “you know, we all want the best for the kiddos.”
You can reach Hiba with your education stories at hahmad@stlpr.org or reach her on X at @Hiba_Ahmad96.
Jessica Rogen | STLPR Digital Editor
Jessica Rogen previously served as Editor-at-large for Big Lou Holdings, managing a trio of alt-weekly newspapers — including Sauce Magazine. Prior to that, she served as managing editor at the Riverfront Times.
As STLPR’s new digital editor, she’ll be responsible for the news presentation on stlpr.org.
“There's a lot of people at St Louis Public Radio who are focused on the broadcast and the audio side of things, as is only right for a radio station,” Rogen said. “I'm one of the people who thinks about how our stories read and look and come across on the digital side. It's my job to shepherd the digital product.”
That focus would include everything you might read at stlpr.org, including new content for the station’s STL Welcome Kit, a field guide for people new to the St. Louis region.
Chasing down a story
One of the first consequential stories Rogen wrote in her new role at STLPR was a timely investigative piece on the RFT's demise. The piece finally exposed the shadowy purchase process that swallowed one of the region’s most beloved alt weeklies.
“I wanted to know for myself who the buyer was, and who would basically destroy this local institution,” Rogen said. “So I just kind of kept poking, poking at the problem.”
That persistence led Rogen to discover why the RFT’s new owners had no interest in retaining any of the paper’s accomplished reporters and editors. That the paper had essentially been sold for scrap to become a host for online adult content ads was the closure that Rogen and St. Louis needed, if not what they deserved.
“It's what I think we all suspected, but it really drove home to me that the paper was dead. It's just such a terrible demise that I just — yeah, it's galling,” she said.
But, the untimely demise of one beloved local institution is what led Rogen to another.
“I've always loved audio stories and had so much respect for St Louis Public Radio,” Rogen said. “I am just a person who loves seeing all the different news stories come out, and I'm excited to be part of that and help people tell their stories in a way that has an impact and makes people want to read them.”
Braving the media rough spots
The loss of a local news juggernaut with 46 years of history like the RFT, has also given Rogen a no-nonsense way of thinking about the challenging media environment we’re navigating.
“If you are a person who likes consuming news, or even if you don't like consuming news, but you just like that someone out there is holding people in power accountable, or are writing about your local cultural institutions, it's important to support a local news outlet. And I would just say, pick one and support it in some way. And just read, you know?,” she said.
“Because, you know, the New York Times is going to be okay, AP is going to be okay, but they're not going to cover local news in the same way that we will,” Rogen said.
“Like St. Louis Public Radio, the RFT did not have a paywall. It was free, but it was ad supported. Public radio is supported by donations — listener supported. The Post-Dispatch sells subscriptions,” she said. “So it's just important to pick a way that you're actually making a financial impact on an outlet if you want to see local journalism survive.”
You can reach Jessica with your news tips or request stories you’d like to see in the STL Welcome Kit by emailing her at jrogen@stlpr.org or reach her on X, formerly known as Twitter @JessicaRogen.
Brian Munoz | STLPR Visuals Editor
And the final bit of news from the newsroom brings word of a promotion. Readers have likely become familiar with Brian Munoz’s award-winning documentary photography and stories since he joined STLPR three years ago as the station’s photojournalist and multimedia reporter. Brian was recently named STLPR’s first Visuals Editor, charged with overseeing the production and standards of the newsroom’s visual journalism.
"I'm incredibly excited to lead the charge in bringing our stories to life through powerful visuals and innovative multimedia approaches," he said. "Visual storytelling isn’t just about creating eye-catching images — it’s about deepening the connection between our neighbors and the important issues that make up the Missouri and Illinois' heartbeat."
Brian has taken a leading role in recent years with planning and producing the St. Louis Public Radio Teen Photojournalist Prize and the St. Louis cohort of NPR’s Next Generation Radio program, coordinating the newsroom’s summer photo internships and building a digital archive of STLPR’s photojournalism. Brian also contributed to STLPR’s short-form videos on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube that earned a 2024 Regional Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association.
“Brian’s dedication to reflecting the many facets of the St. Louis area through visual storytelling helps residents more deeply understand and connect with the triumphs, struggles and aspirations of people in our region,” said Interim News Director Brian Heffernan. “STLPR is building the most exciting and ambitious local news team in the St. Louis region. Brian, Hiba and Jessica are all important pieces to our trajectory.”
You can reach Brian Munoz with your tips around anything visually newsworthy, quirky and weird at bmunoz@stlpr.org or reach him on X and Instagram at @brianmmunoz.
