Jenny Brundin is the education reporter for Colorado Public Radio. She joined CPR in 2011. At CPR, Jenny has covered K-12, higher education and early childhood education. She led a year-long series in 2019 on why teenagers are experiencing high levels of anxiety and depression and received a fellowship from the Institute for Citizens and Scholars in 2020 for an in-depth series on expanding Colorado’s early childhood workforce.
Professional background:
Jenny joined Colorado Public Radio as education reporter in July 2011 after spending 16 years at KUER, Salt Lake City, as senior reporter and news director. There she covered a number of beats including education, politics, immigration, health care and business. As news director, she also developed projects and series focused on issue-specific forums, citizen-based projects, commentaries and youth-produced stories.
Before her career in radio, Jenny worked as a literacy teacher at a refugee center in Alberta, Canada, where she developed curriculum and participated in the country’s first program designed to help refugee children and teens adapt to life in Canada.
Education:
Bachelor’s degree in political science, McGill University; Master’s degree in journalism, University of California, Berkeley. Jenny also holds a graduate diploma in adult education from the University of Alberta, Canada.
Awards:
Jenny has won numerous national awards from Public Radio News Directors Incorporated, regional Murrow Awards for news series and was named Best Radio Reporter six times in Utah. Jenny has won first prize twice nationally for education reporting in the Education Writer’s Association contest. She won a first-place award from the Associated Press Television and Radio Awards, Colorado Society of Professional Journalists 2020 Journalist of the Year Award (CPR newsroom), and a national Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media for “Amelia’s Audio Diary.”
Scores on the national test for fourth- and eighth-graders plummeted across the U.S., but Colorado’s reading marks were higher than the national average.
El consejo no solo establece las políticas educativas, sino que también supervisa casi 2,000 escuelas públicas en Colorado y determina los estándares académicos de 905,000 estudiantes.
The board not only sets education policy, but it also supervises nearly 2,000 public schools in Colorado and sets academic standards for 905,000 students.
The board, which often has unanimous decisions, voted 4 to 3 to reject the social studies curriculum that emphasizes Western civilization, American exceptionalism, patriotism and Christianity.
After tumult over references to LGBTQ references, one board member is now pushing standards that lean heavily on exceptionalism and Christianity to improve the state’s social studies scores, but critics say the curriculum is problematic.
Two former students sued the district last year alleging that the district failed to investigate claims that a popular student athlete at Fairview High school raped at least two other students.
The investigation by the state education department involved 99 students who were served in the specialized centers at district schools or an outside school contracted with the district between the spring of 2021 and 2022.
Jefferson County School District plans to close 16 schools as enrollment declines. The district has nearly 19,000 unused seats in elementary schools alone.