Catherine Shen
Education ReporterCatherine Shen is a Connecticut Public’s education reporter. The Los Angeles native comes to CT Public after a decade of print and digital reporting across the country.
She started her journalism career in the Los Angeles fashion scene. While that was an exciting time, Catherine ultimately needed to get back to her news roots and was soon traipsing all across California’s Central Coast as a freelance news reporter for several newspapers, where she broke stories about local government, law enforcement, and education. She also covered crime, healthcare, business, as well as arts and culture.
After finding herself on the East Coast, she continued reporting in New Jersey, covering a mix of academic news, nonprofit projects, and human feature stories both off and on camera. Then she moved to Connecticut and started reporting for the New Britain Herald, where she won several Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists awards for her coverage on the COVID-19 pandemic, social justice movements, and police accountability.
Catherine received an undergraduate degree in broadcast journalism from Washington State University’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. While an undergraduate student, she was a reporter for the university newspaper and its student-run television station, Cable 8 News. She’s also a proud member of the Asian American Journalism Society.
In her downtime, she tries her best to catch up on her reading list but often fails due to a variety of distractions, including reorganizing her bookshelves, scavenging library book sales, and thinking about reading books.
Catherine can be reached at cshen@ctpublic.org and follow her on Twitter at @catshenwnpr.
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Three new members are joining the Board of Regents for Higher Education
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A report commissioned by the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system found that Western Connecticut State University’s structural deficit led to a decline in its reserves, from $24 million in fiscal year 2012 to “depleted” in 2021.
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Connecticut students to continue getting free, nutritious meals this summer and upcoming school yearThere’s relief for Connecticut families after Congress extended a bill to offer free summer meals for children statewide. And school districts will receive a higher reimbursement rate per meal in the upcoming school year. -
In Connecticut, opponents of abortion rights welcomed the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the new opportunities to protect the unborn.
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Connecticut hardened its legal protections this year to protect abortion access and the right of people seeking reproductive healthcare from out of state.
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School districts across Connecticut are deciding whether to arm security officers with guns.
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A Vietnamese Catholic priest wanted to help Connecticut’s Asian community to find comfort through familiar foods and music. So he decided to re-create Asian night markets on weekends throughout the summer.
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The day after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Amber Moye went to work with a sense of numbness. And when she arrived, she was directed to treat the day like any typical school day.“I think we’re losing the human aspect of it,” said Moye, who teaches third grade in New Haven Public Schools. “This is a thing that happened to a group of people, and essentially the impact of it goes beyond the room where children lost their lives. We need to recognize that ‘today’ is not a regular day and how do we navigate through that.”Connecticut educators have been saying that teachers need to be given space to process traumatic events, like the Texas shooting, before having discussions with students.
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Students across the U.S. report tips – including comments and bullying at school and online – to a crisis center run by Sandy Hook Promise via Say Something, an anonymous 24/7 reporting app. The tips are reviewed by counselors trained in suicide prevention, crisis management and mental health support.Hartford Public Schools rolled out a new social and emotional learning program after the mass shooting at a Texas elementary school.The school district is partnering with Newtown-based Sandy Hook Promise, a national nonprofit founded by family members whose loved ones were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
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In the wake of the attack on an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, teachers nationwide are once again dealing with the collective trauma of a deadly school shooting. Connecticut educators say teachers need more trauma-informed training.
