GREEN BAY – Samantha Hernandez, an education reporter for the Green Bay Press-Gazette, was one of four people selected for the Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship at Columbia University in New York for the 2019-2020 academic year, the newspaper announced today.
Spearheaded by the Spencer Foundation education research group, the program will allow Hernandez to dive into rural school financing and how states fund their rural districts.
A month before she was scheduled to depart for New York in August, however, a car accident left her with a concussion. Hernandez worried her dream would be washed down the drain, wrote the Press-Gazette‘s Haley BeMiller. The concussion left Hernandez struggling to read, write or even maintain her balance.
But as she struggled with the side effects and worked to recuperate, Columbia allowed her to begin taking classes from Green Bay. After 72 appointments and 151 days without driving, Hernandez is set to depart for New York on Sunday.
