When Brittany Munyer read the Tampa Bay Times series “Failure Factories,” she realized she wanted to be a teacher.
She was one of about 75 UF students and Gainesville residents gathered in Pugh Hall on Wednesday night to hear from one of the 2016 Pulitzer-Prize winner and UF adjunct professor Michael LaForgia. The report, published in August 2015, showed how the resegregation of elementary schools in Pinellas County led to massive problems among black schoolchildren.
After attending Campbell Park Elementary School, mentioned in the report, Munyer, 21, felt a personal connection to the problems LaForgia, helped unearth.
“He’s a regular person, but in my eyes it means so much that him and his team really
just transformed who I am as a person,” the UF anthropology senior said.
UF journalism professor Mike Foley, who interviewed LaForgia, asked him how he conducted the investigation.
LaForgia said investigating took 18 months, during which the team spoke to more than 100 families of schoolchildren and dozens of administrators. The story was really about students being treated unfairly, something LaForgia said he fixated on.
“I just don’t like stuff that’s not fair,” LaForgia said.
After the story was published, LaForgia said more people became aware of the schools’ issues, but the Pinellas County School Board has yet to reverse the zoning practices that created the inequality.
“These schools are generating a massive amount of academic failure, and we need to hold them accountable for that,” LaForgia said.
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rellenbogen@alligator.org
From left: Professor Mike Foley speaks with Michael LaForgia about LaForgia’s investigative series “Failure Factories” for the Tampa Bay Times. LaForgia won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting in 2016 for the investigation into Pinellas County schools.
