Julian Roberts-Grmela

I'm a freelance journalist based in New York City. My reporting has been published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, City & State New York, Chalkbeat, The Hechinger Report, the New York Daily News, The Daily Beast, City Limits, and many more outlets. You can read some selected publications below.

The Guardian •

Many believe US healthcare industry was to blame in CEO killing, poll reveals

In a new poll, more than two-thirds of respondents said they believed denials of coverage and profits in the health insurance industry were partially responsible for the killing of Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare CEO, in early December.Thompson was shot dead on the streets of Manhattan. His killer fled, sparking a nationwide manhunt, which ended when Luigi Mangione was arrested and charged with the killing after being arrested in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s. Mangione’s alleged writings indica...
The Guardian •

New York governor orders firing of 14 prison workers after fatal attack on inmate

The New York governor, Kathy Hochul, has directed 14 workers at a state prison to be fired after they were allegedly involved in an attack that resulted in the death of an incarcerated man.Robert Brooks, 43, died in a local hospital a day after a 9 December incident at the Marcy correctional facility in central New York.Hochul said her decision to initiate the firing process of 13 correction officers and a prison nurse came after an “internal review” of the incident, of which there is video that...
The Guardian •

US Starbucks workers’ strike expands to 11 states as Christmas approaches

The five-day strike from the Starbucks workers’ union has grown to include locations in at least 11 states.As of Sunday, the strike had caused “almost 50 stores nationwide” to close after it began, according to a statement provided by the union.The strike started with baristas walking off the job in Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle on Friday. It has since expanded into Denver; Columbus, Ohio; and Philadelphia.Other locations are: New York City; Boston; Texas’s Dallas-Forth Worth area; and Portla...
The Guardian •

Inmates burn themselves in protest at ‘inhumane’ Virginia prison conditions

Several incarcerated people in Virginia’s high-security Red Onion state prison have intentionally burned themselves in a protest against harsh conditions at the facility.A written statement from Virginia’s department of corrections acknowledged that men imprisoned there had harmed themselves, although the authorities confirmed six incidents while others reported that 12 men were injured.“In recent months, six inmates at Red Onion state prison have burned themselves using improvised devices that...
The Guardian •

Car found in Georgia pond may contain couple missing since 1980

A Georgia police department says it has found a car that could contain the remains of a New York couple who have been missing since 1980.The car, a Lincoln Continental with one human bone inside, was found in a pond between the Royal Inn Hotel and Interstate 95 on New Jesup Highway, by a non-profit investigative group from Florida called the Sunshine State Sonar Team, police said.“The vehicle is similar to the description of a vehicle that Charles and Catherine Romer were believed to be driving...
City & State NY •

Citywide officials at odds with Eric Adams over NYPD subway shooting footage: ‘Not a single shot needed to be fired’

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has continued to defend the New York City Police Department officers who shot four people at a Brooklyn L train subway stop over a week ago. But after watching the body camera and security camera footage released by the NYPD, New York City’s two other citywide elected officials have concluded that Derrell Mickles did not pose an immediate threat to the officers at the time they opened fire on him. Two City Council members who represent East New York and Brownsville...
City & State NY •

Brownsville City Council member asks: Why haven’t the mayor or the NYPD visited victims of Sunday’s subway shooting?

City Council Member Chris Banks, who’s district borders the Sutter Ave L subway stop, said that the New York City Police Department’s narrative of the police shooting there over the weekend sounds like a “conspiracy” until he can view the footage. He’s also calling on the police department and the mayor to visit the family of the bystander who police accidentally shot in the head when taking aim at an alleged fare evader who they say had a knife.“It seems like when these videos are favorable to...
Los Angeles Times •

Many high school students can't read. Is the solution teaching reading in every class?

Like many high school chemistry teachers, Angie Hackman said she instructs students on atoms, matter and how they “influence the world around us.”But Hackman also has another responsibility: developing students’ literacy skills. She closely reads passages from their textbooks, breaks apart prefixes and suffixes and identifies root words. She dissected the word “intermolecular,” and its prefix, “inter,” connecting it to other words with that same prefix.Every teacher at her San Diego charter scho...
The Hechinger Report •

Many kids can't read, even in high school. Is the solution teaching reading in every class? - The Hechinger Report

Like many high school chemistry teachers, Angie Hackman instructs students on atoms, matter and, she says, how they “influence the world around us.” But Hackman also has another responsibility in class: developing students’ reading skills. For about 20 of the 80 minutes of almost every class, she engages her chemistry students in literacy skills, she said: closely reading passages from their textbooks, “breaking apart” prefixes and suffixes for relevant vocabulary and identifying root words. Du...
The New York Times •

Families Say Shelters Without Air-Conditioning Are Like ‘Living in Hell’

The sun was about to set Monday evening and the temperature was still 90 degrees. The air was thick and oppressive. Shaasia Wood and her 4-year-old son were hanging out on the sidewalk, hoping for a breeze, near the homeless shelter where they live in Upper Manhattan.That was because inside their un-air-conditioned room, “It feels like living in hell, really,” Ms. Wood said.Ms. Wood, a 40-year-old home care aide, has plenty of company in her misery: Thousands of families with children live in Ne...
The New York Times •

After Teens Drown at Coney Island, New Yorkers Still Crowd the Beach

The scene at Coney Island on Saturday was typical for a humid and hot weekend in July: colorful towels, tents and umbrellas packed into the strip of sand.Along the famed boardwalk in Brooklyn, signs warned visitors of the potential dangers posed by lightning or strong currents, and delineated where and when it was safe to swim.Yet in one area, closed off by small red flags staked into the sand, a handful of people ventured into the water with no lifeguards present. To the east, where two teenage...
The New York Times •

3 Dead After Being Struck by Pickup Truck in Downtown Manhattan

Three people were killed and at least eight others were injured after a driver plowed a pickup truck into a crowd of people celebrating July 4 in a park on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the authorities said. The police said that the driver was intoxicated.Several of the injured were transported to hospitals, a police spokesman said. The spokesman, Sgt. Jose Jimenez of the New York Police Department, said that the driver, Daniel Hyden, 44, was in custody. Mr. Hyden was facing charges of aggravated...
Prism •

Educators are trying to bring literacy to adult education

In Zoom class, Larissa Phillips drilled her student, who is in his sixties, on the digraph “ck.” In previous lessons, they’d already gone through several common digraphs—two-letter combinations that form one sound—like “sh,” “th,” and “ch.” After explaining the concept, Phillips instructed the student to rehearse decoding different sounds for vowels and consonants before blending sounds, reviewing words, and then finally reading phrases. By the end, the student was reading complete sentences th
Prism •

Student school board members call for more power

Imagine showing up to work every day, but all of the decisions are made by people who don’t actually work at the company. Now, imagine if everything you hear about the company suggests that it’s failing. According to Jonathan Collins, a political science and education professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, this is the feeling students in New York City’s public schools have been experiencing for decades. For more than 20 years, New York City’s school system has operated under a syst
City & State New York •

Manhattan parent board’s anti-trans vote complicates debate over mayoral control of public schools

A Manhattan parent advisory board’s decision to pass a non-binding resolution calling for an investigation into the presence of transgender girls on girls’ sports team has sparked intense criticism – and handed a potent political talking point to Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks as they fight to maintain control over the city’s public school system. On Wednesday night, Community Education Council 2 – an elected parent-led advisory group for public elementary and middle school
The Daily Beast •

This Tech May Stop High Beams From Blinding You at Night

A disproportionate amount of driver and pedestrian deaths occur at night, partially due to low visibility, according to AAA. While only a quarter of all driving in the U.S. takes place at night, that’s when 77 percent of all pedestrian deaths and 50 percent of all driver deaths occur. However, 64 percent of drivers in the U.S. “do not regularly use their high beams,” according to AAA. Drivers are choosing the risks of darkness over the risks of glare. “We’ve all been there: You’re driving at n
Chalkbeat •

Where are the students? Despite a state law, few NYC local education councils have youth members

Nearly all of the Community Education Councils across the five boroughs are out of compliance with a state law requiring non-voting high school seniors on their boards, New York City Education Department officials confirmed. Each of the city’s 32 local school districts has a Community Education Council, or CEC, with 10 elected voting members and two appointed by the local borough president. Since 2022, state law has required CECs to also have two non-voting high school seniors, up from 2003′s o
The 74 •

Forget Memorization: A Concrete Understanding of Math Better for Young Learners

Sign up for our free newsletter and start your day with clear-headed reporting on the latest topics in education. Emily Elliot Gaffney believes that many students enter kindergarten “without a lot of hands-on experience with numbers,” causing some to fall behind. Without a foundational understanding of the relationship between numbers and quantities, Gaffney says, some students begin school “believing that math is almost a foreign language where they need to memorize answers to equations they’
City & State New York •

Legislators object to including mayoral control in budget negotiations

As Mayor Eric Adams looks for Albany to grant an extension of mayoral control of the New York City public school system, Gov. Kathy Hochul is supportive but progressive legislators may stand in his way – especially since the state Education Department has yet to complete a study of the effects of mayoral control of the school system. The mayoral control law allows the New York City mayor to appoint both the chancellor of the city’s public schools and a majority of the members of the Panel for E
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