{"id":17949,"date":"2013-04-11T15:50:51","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T19:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=17949"},"modified":"2013-04-11T15:50:52","modified_gmt":"2013-04-11T19:50:52","slug":"meet-stateimpact-floridas-newest-reporter-sammy-mack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/04\/11\/meet-stateimpact-floridas-newest-reporter-sammy-mack\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet StateImpact Florida’s Newest Reporter: Sammy Mack"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi, StateImpact Florida audience. I\u2019m Sammy<\/a>. Nice to meet you.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thrilled to be the newest addition to the StateImpact Florida team\u2014working closely with John O\u2019Connor <\/a>to bring you stories about the impact of education policies.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

<\/p>

Sammy Mack is the Miami-based StateImpact reporter.<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019m based out of the WLRN \u2013 Miami Herald Newsroom<\/a>, where I\u2019ve been working as an editor and health care policy reporter for the past few years.<\/p>\n

In a way, StateImpact Florida is a return for me. I\u2019m a product of Florida education. I grew up in St. Petersburg. I\u2019m a graduate of St. Petersburg Senior High School (go Green Devils<\/a>!). I took the first FCAT<\/a>. And before that, I sat for its predecessor, Florida Writes.<\/a><\/p>\n

Fun side note: My first education assignment was to report on Tamagotchi<\/a> policies in 1997. This was when I was a teen writer for the St. Petersburg Times<\/em> (now Tampa Bay Times<\/em>) Monday morning kids\u2019 section. I got a notebook and monitored the halls of Seminole Middle School (where I was an 8th<\/sup> grader) for signs of the utterly annoying, oddly compelling<\/a> digital pet craze that was allegedly sweeping the nation.<\/p>\n

What I observed? \u201cDay 1: No sightings. Day 2: An announcement was made that all virtual pets at school will be confiscated. No sightings. Day 3: No sightings.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It was a good journalism lesson: Stories aren\u2019t always what you expect them to be.<\/p>\n

This time around, I\u2019m looking at how the Common Core<\/a> is affecting students and families in Florida schools, what policy changes mean for students\u2019 lives outside the classroom and who feels the changes most. It probably won\u2019t involve a Tamagotchi, but you can bet there will be stories about the role of technology and how students learn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But enough about me. What\u2019s your interest in education? Feel free to drop me a line: smack@miamiherald.com or leave a message in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi, StateImpact Florida audience. I\u2019m Sammy. Nice to meet you. I\u2019m thrilled to be the newest addition to the StateImpact Florida team\u2014working closely with John O\u2019Connor to bring you stories about the impact of education policies. I\u2019m based out of the WLRN \u2013 Miami Herald Newsroom, where I\u2019ve been working as an editor and health […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":17952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[1157,1019,1050],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17949"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}