Chalkbeat-led series wins a top prize from Indiana’s state journalism awards

Lost In Translation, a Chalkbeat-led joint project published in partnership with the Indianapolis Star and WFYI Public Media, was honored Friday by the Indiana Society of Professional Journalists as the best series of news stories produced in Indiana in 2015.

It was one of eight Chalkbeat stories that won awards in the competition. Chalkbeat also won first place for education coverage for The Basics of School Funding: Difficulty Defining Fairness, written by Shaina Cavazos and Scott Elliott.

The eight stories that were part of Lost In Translation were written by Chalkbeat’s Hayleigh Colombo, Shaina Cavazos and Scott Elliott, along with Stephanie Wang from the Indianapolis Star and Eric Weddle of WFYI.

The series explored an explosion of immigrant children attending Indianapolis schools and the struggles and successes of schools that have suddenly found themselves serving larger and larger percentages of kids who are learning English as a new language.

The series prompted the Indiana General Assembly to double the money set aside to support English language learning programs in the state budget. By last fall, Chalkbeat reported that money was helping expand efforts by local schools to serve those kids.

In all, Chalkbeat journalists won eight awards, up from four the prior year.

Other award-winning stories by Chalkbeat included:

Best education reporting

First place: The basics of school funding in Indiana: Difficulty defining fairness
Third place: Rich school, poor school: IPS push to even out funding could bring big changes

Best coverage of minority issues

Second place: The first thing schools often get wrong with English language learners is their names

Third place: Hispanics flee as fights, racial tension rile George Washington High School

Best coverage of children’s issues

Third place: Some immigrant children shut out of new preschool programs

Best investigative reporting

Third place: Charter school offered $100 reward to anyone who referred students who enrolled

Best journalism website

Second place: Chalkbeat Indiana