This Changes Everything

This Changes Everything Season 3 was all about public education. So we wanted to share an episode from another podcast that you might be interested in. This spring, This Changes Everything won a first place award in Audio Storytelling from the Best of the West journalism contest — specifically for the second episode of Season 3,  The Kids Are Not All Right , which was about the mental health crisi...

Enjoy this short excerpt of Crosscut's newest podcast title, which features host Brooklyn Jamerson-Flowers touring the places that have fostered Seattle’s Black artists. Every episode of the Black Arts Legacies podcast explores the history and ongoing impact of an art spaces in Seattle, the stories of each built around the voices of the artists who claim these places as critical to their developme...

For some families, the shutdowns provided an opportunity to understand how to become better advocates for their kids. Of all the educational challenges created by the pandemic, none is likely as great as the requirement that public schools continue to provide “free and appropriate” education for students with special needs.  For many students and families involved in special education, the shutdow...

In the midst of the pandemic and in the wake of 2020 protests against racism, one group of students in Washington state pressed for real change … and achieved it. When the protests spurred by the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police spilled into the streets of American cities, the initial focus was on policing. But in the weeks and months that followed, a reckoning with racist practices to...

For some students and educators, the school shutdowns offered a break from the racism they typically experienced at school. When the pandemic hit and schools shut down, a broad spectrum of emotions followed. There was uncertainty and dread, along with a kind of naive giddiness that accompanies the potential of an unplanned, extended spring break. And then, according to a number of the students of...

Having remote classes in the early part of the pandemic was difficult. But for some teachers, it has been a revelation. Consensus in education is difficult to come by, and the pandemic certainly has not changed that. But one thing that most everyone seems to agree on is this: Online learning was terrible.  As schools moved to remote education, most everything was thrown online as quickly as possib...

Rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and behavioral crises have risen during the pandemic. Are schools equipped for the needs they now face? Even before the pandemic, the mental health of young people was a growing concern. By 2018, for instance, suicide had become the second leading cause of death among people age 10 to 24. And in 2019, according to data from the Centers for Disease Co...

Early in the pandemic, many educators gave student well-being priority over academic performance. Some never stopped. When schools shut down early in the COVID-19 pandemic, it was unprecedented. The vast majority of teachers had never done school outside the school building before. The vast majority of students hadn’t, either. And no one knew from day to day how long the shutdown would last. Cases...

The third season of Crosscut’s podcast on our new normal explores what the pandemic has taught us about public schools — and where we might go from here. As we navigate the third consecutive school year impacted by COVID-19, some teachers, students and families see this tumultuous moment as more than a challenge. It’s also an opportunity. Yes, school shutdowns across Washington state and the natio...

This week we have a special preview of Mossback, a companion podcast to the popular  Mossback’s Northwest video series  that airs on KCTS 9. The Mossback podcast digs deeper into the topics that fans want to know more about from the current season of Mossback’s Northwest. Hosted by Sara Bernard, each episode of this series will feature an interview with Mossback, Knute Berger, about one episode of...

More than 6 months after first pledging to rethink public safety, city leaders face opposition. What’s next? As anti-racism protesters filled city streets this past summer with calls for a radical rethinking of public safety, a majority of Seattle City Council members responded by committing to cut the city's police budget by 50%. But making good on that promise has been difficult. In this, the fi...

Many activists leading the call to defund the police say the answer to disproportionate policing is to take money from the cops and give it to communities. But change is never as easy as writing new lines in a city budget. In this episode of This Changes Everything’s look at efforts to defund the police, Sara Bernard and David Kroman examine emerging community programs that are seeking to take the...

As cities have searched for non-police options for crisis response, many have arrived in an unlikely place: Eugene, Oregon. In this episode of This Changes Everything’s focus on efforts to defunding the police, host Sara Bernard heads to Eugene for a virtual ride along with CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets), an inventive and unique effort to respond to crisis calls with social...

Seattle police have undergone additional training to better respond to people in crisis, but still things go wrong and people die. Why? Seattle police, more than many police departments, have extensive training to improve their response to people in crisis — but people are still dying. In this episode of This Changes Everything’s focus on defunding the police, we look at what happens when things g...

The debate over public safety is filled with disagreements, but almost everyone agrees on one thing: We need another option for people in crisis. In this episode of This Changes Everything’s focus on defunding the police, reporter David Kroman rides along with Sandlin Grayson, a member of the Seattle Police Department Crisis Response Team, to observe how the police approach crisis calls.  Kroman t...

The city spent a decade working to reform its police department. Then, the turmoil of 2020 started a new movement. In the midst of the anti-racism protests that followed the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police last spring, a new cry went out: "Defund the police!" And in the weeks that followed, Seattle city leaders appeared to be listening. Members of the Seattle City Council, responding...

For most parents, giving birth is a stressful and anxiety-inducing undertaking. Navigating a complicated health care system and the unrealistic expectations of friends and relatives can be challenging. Then there are the mental gymnastics that accompany the act of actually bringing a new life into the world. But what happens when that world is in a state of crisis, when the health care system you...

Running a small businesses is already rife with difficulties. But since the coronavirus pandemic arrived and governments placed restrictions on gatherings and commerce to help stave off an influx of infections, survival has become impossible for some. Even as the state begins easing the restrictions, the path back to solvency for those that have survived is harrowing, and the threat of a second wa...

Over the last three months, Americans have made drastic changes to almost every aspect of their lives to limit the spread of the coronavirus. They have transformed the way they work, the way they relax, the way they eat, the way they worship. At the center of all of this change is death, the singular thing that those changes are intended to forestall. So, naturally, death has changed as well. On t...

When President Donald Trump focused his ire on mail-in ballots late last month, Twitter did something unusual. It fact-checked him. His claims that moving away from in-person voting during the pandemic would lead to widespread fraud was unsubstantiated, the company said. His tweets, and that unprecedented tweetback, were just the latest in a spirited debate over the adoption of mail-in balloting b...

The novel coronavirus pandemic has brought with it a host of new problems, but it has also taken some longstanding problems and made them considerably worse. Homelessness was already considered an emergency in the Seattle region before the current crisis, but the threat of infection and the massive economic contraction have put those without shelter at greater risk while moving many low-income wor...

When the coronavirus came to Washington, almost every working artist saw their plans evaporate. Theater, dance and musical performances were canceled, while galleries and bookshops were temporarily shuttered to adhere with the social distancing measures put in place in states throughout the nation. But the artistic impulse, as well as the need for a steady income, did not subside. With the help of...

Community is at the core of almost every organized religion the world over. So what happens to the faithful and their leaders when gathering is potentially deadly and forbidden by government? As all things in this era of coronavirus, the answer is complicated. Many religious leaders are finding new ways to conduct the rituals of their faith, from the most intimate to the necessarily communal, whil...

As the world grapples with the spread of the novel coronavirus, another event from history has been invoked again and again: the so-called Spanish flu of 1918-19. While that pandemic, which killed an estimated 50 million people, took hold at a very different time in world history — the First World War was winding down — the similarities are striking. From a public contending with draconian public...

Misinformation is nothing new. In the past few years, the spread of convenient fictions and damaging distortions has become ubiquitous in American life, as trolls and propagandists seek to confuse and mislead the American people. What is new, in the era of coronavirus, is the deadly impact of that misinformation. From the beginning of the outbreak in the United States, public health recommendation...