22 Search Results for Layne dowdall

Feb 4

2021

iPost adds YouTube, Instagram and Reddit

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Investigative Post has expanded our online presence to include a YouTube channel and two additional social media platforms to complement our presence on Facebook and Twitter. Our YouTube channel includes 42 videos, most of them stories produced since the spring for our partners at WGRZ. The channel includes a feature story, which typically will be our latest piece, and playlists organized by topics, including coverage of Buffalo police, City Hall and politics. Fresh videos will be posted shortly after they air on WGRZ.  (Our videos are also available on our website, embedded in stories.) We’ve also started posting to Instagram[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jan 2

2021

Investigative Post adds two reporters

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Investigative Post has added two reporters to our staff. Mark Scheer joins us from the Niagara Gazette and Lockport Union-Sun & Journal, where he served as regional news director. Layne Dowdall begins a fellowship following her graduation from St. Bonaventure University. Our reporting staff has typically included three reporters in recent years. The addition of Scheer and Dowdall brings us to four full-time reporters. They join Geoff Kelly, former editor of The Public and Artvoice, and Phil Gambini, who worked with Scheer at the Gazette. Kelly covers local government and politics, Gambini is relaunching our environmental beat that has been[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 20

2021

Buffalo’s abysmal school attendance

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Students missing two classes a month is a sign of trouble.  A lot of students in Buffalo schools are in a world of trouble. They’re simply not showing up for online classes. Only one-third of students had satisfactory attendance from the start of the school year until the first week of March, shortly after the district began phasing in classroom instruction.  Another third of students missed online classes often enough that their frequent absence put their academic achievement at risk — or worse. The last third were severely absent, meaning they typically missed school at least one day a week,[...]

Posted 3 years ago

May 10

2021

Buffalo schools still reeling from hack

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How bad was the hack of the Buffalo school district’s computer system in mid-March? The paper equivalent of lost documents would fill KeyBank Center to the rafters, one source told Investigative Post. The missing records include decades of teaching materials, student records and some 5,000 applications for admission to schools in September. Systems essential to the operation of the district, such as legal and accounting, are crippled. The hack has caused minimal disruption to classroom instruction and distance learning, but it’s impacted the physical operation of school buildings. Automated functions such as operation of heating and cooling systems have been[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 8

2021

Regents exemptions varied among districts

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Buffalo wasn’t the only local school district who graduated a lot of students who failed to pass Regents exams last year. The exams were cancelled because of the pandemic, which enabled students to obtain an exemption that allowed them to graduate, provided they earned a passing grade in any subject where exams were scheduled. Twenty-two percent of those graduating from Buffalo schools did so thanks to the exemption. Close behind them were the graduating classes of Newfane Central School District (21 percent) and Cheektowaga Central School District (20 percent). On balance 8.9 percent of seniors in school districts in Erie,[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 6

2021

Exemptions boost Buffalo graduation rate

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Buffalo School Superintendent Kriner Cash was ecstatic. The city’s high school graduation rate last year jumped 11.6 percent – eight times greater than the increase statewide. Cash proclaimed he was “extraordinarily proud of the Class of 2020,” terming the increased graduation rate in the midst of the pandemic “a tremendous positive.” Left unsaid: 22 percent of the graduating class – 423 students – was exempted from passing mandated Regents exams, which had been cancelled because of the pandemic. Instead, students needed only to receive a passing grade in their individual classes, and the district adopted a generous grading policy to[...]

Posted 3 years ago