2024 Features (Education-Only Outlets) Winners

About the Winners:

A rural, politically conservative school district in Alabama for years struggled to accommodate the rising numbers of English learners whose families moved to Russellville for work at a local poultry plant. But in 2015, the school district hired Heath Grimes, a self-described man of faith from rural Alabama, as superintendent. By most accounts, he was successful, putting in place changes that helped English learners and all students. Grimes and the district won state and national recognition.

Then, without explanation, Grimes was told that his contract wasn’t being renewed. Kavitha Cardoza learned that Grimes was being shown the door when she happened to call him for a different story. She was perplexed by how a high-achieving, nationally respected superintendent could summarily lose his job. With extensive support from her editors at The Hechinger Report and palabra., Kavitha spent the next year investigating what happened — and what it meant for students and families.

Comments From the Judges:

“An infuriating story that took a lot of time and care to report. I appreciated that the narrative was straightforward and easy to understand, and that the reporter didn’t pull their punches when identifying that the superintendent lost his job largely because of anti-immigrant sentiment, or as the reporter put it: ‘small-town politics, deep-rooted antipathy toward immigrants and a yearning for the city Russellville used to be.’”

“This story was deeply reported and I appreciated the in-depth explanations of which strategies were helping English learners and why. Great storytelling. So compelling! The ending had me seething because I was so invested in this superintendent’s mission and awed by his success.”

Photo credit: Charity Rachelle for palabra./The Hechinger Report; illustration by Pepa Ilustradora for palabra./The Hechinger Report