Now a statewide investigative reporter, Jess Clark has been an education journalist for more than a decade.
In this new conversation, she describes how she came to report and produce a powerful new four-part audio podcast called The Girls — which tells the story of three young women who were abused by two football coaches and educators — and the education system that did little to protect them.
The Girls is an amazing podcast, and you should listen to it if you haven’t already.
But what’s most remarkable about it may be the story Clark tells about how she had to overcome her initial hesitance in talking to the survivors, whom she first encountered when they were protesting at a school board meeting:
“They had these zany signs, and they had matching t-shirts,” she recalls, “and I was kind of like, ‘What are these women up to?’”
However, as soon as they started telling her what had happened to them, Clark knew that “this is finally a chance to show the systemic side of something that most education reporters have to report on on weekly or monthly basis — which are allegations of sexual misconduct by staff members.”
Watch or read the transcript above or on YouTube. Listen to it on Spotify or Apple.
Most people who’ve heard Clark’s story have been outraged, but not so much public officials, says Clark. The response from, people with the power to change things has been very disappointing. One board member told Clark that he didn’t plan to listen to it. “No one has really stepped up with solutions.”
“I think, education sees itself as under threat in many ways,” says Clark, especially given overstretched staff and struggles to fill jobs. “I think there’s a reluctance to admit that something’s wrong.”
There’s also “a reluctance to want to report your peers or to even imagine that your colleagues could be susceptible to these kinds of predatory instincts,” says Clark, especially if there’s a chance that doing so might “ruin someone’s life.”
They are, of course, talking about their colleagues, not their students. And therein lies the problem.
Previously from The Grade
Making school sexual misconduct a core part of the beat (Danielle DuClos interview)
School secrets and sexual assault (interview with Stephanie Kuzydym)
One reporter’s efforts to end ‘passing the trash’ in California schools (Matt Drange)
