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Jennifer Smith Richards on Muck Rack

Jennifer Smith Richards

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Chicago
As seen in: ProPublica, MSN, Chicago Tribune, Flipboard, Salon, Harper's Bazaar, The Daily Dot, Yahoo, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Advocate Magazine, Arizona Daily Star and
Investigations in the Midwest at ProPublica. Past: Chicago Tribune by way of OH/GA/NY/WV. Enthusiastic about FOIA + data. Tell me everything.

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Jennifer Smith Richards’s Biography

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Jennifer Smith Richards has been a data reporter at the Chicago Tribune since 2015. Smith Richards previously covered schools and education for more than a decade at newspapers in Huntington, W.Va.; Utica, N.Y.; Savannah, Ga.; and Columbus, Ohio. Her work has touched on everything from sexual abuse in schools to police accountability to school choice.

Jennifer Smith Richards’s Journalist Portfolio

Betrayed: Chicago Public Schools fail to protect students from sexual abuse

Betrayed: Chicago Public Schools fail to protect students from sexual abuse

Chicago Public Schools has failed to protect students from sexual abuse and assault, according to a Chicago T…

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Columbus school attendance scandal

Columbus school attendance scandal

Columbus City Schools employees - and perhaps others in schools throughout the state - are accused of falsify…

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Locked Away

Locked Away

Some Ohio children with disabilities are regularly isolated in cell-like rooms, closets or old offices when t…

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Help wanted: Jobs for the disabled

Help wanted: Jobs for the disabled

Thousands of adults with Down syndrome, autism and other developmental disabilities work in Ohio at jobs that…

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The ABCs of Betrayal

The ABCs of Betrayal

How can a child rapist still have a teaching license? Why is a teacher who married his student still in th…

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Articles

How Videos Helped Me Uncover Abuse at an Arkansas Private School

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By Jennifer Smith Richards Verified
| ProPublica Verified
The Delta Institute for the Developing Brain was set back off a country road in a white colonial house — such an atypical location that I first drove right by it, unsure that it was a school. I turned around, went to the door, introduced myself as a reporter and asked for a tour. I knew a student had been assaulted in this Arkansas school a year earlier because of some news reports based on a detective’s description.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

Public money Is fueling an explosion of private schools. States often don’t care how they’re run.

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By Jennifer Smith Richards Verified, Megan O'Matz Verified, Mollie Simon Verified
| Arkansas Times Verified
Editor’s Note: This story is co-published with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive their biggest stories as soon as they’re published. A decade ago, the state of Florida stripped a teacher of her license for sexual abuse of a 16-year-old boy. Last year, she opened a private school there with ease. Her name and photo were on her new school’s website and details of her case were easy to find with an online search.
Open in Who Shared View Duplicates (6) Issue with article?

This Private School Had Students Scrub Floors and Attack a Fellow Classmate. The State Still Funds It.

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By Jennifer Smith Richards Verified, Jodi S. Cohen Verified
| ProPublica Verified
At her private school just beyond the city limits of Jonesboro, Arkansas, Mary “Tracy” Morrison demanded the attention of the 19 students seated on the floor in a circle. She then directed a skinny 13-year-old boy wearing a cartoon Mario shirt to sit in the center. “Raise your hand if he’s ever been mean to you — ever,” Morrison, the owner, prompted the other middle schoolers, and some hands shot up. “Most people don’t think you’re a nice kid. You lie. You lie all the time,” she told the boy.
Open in Who Shared View Duplicates (13) Issue with article?
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