Presentation
Bay Area journalist exploring the policies and trends driving society today. Email me tips at summerlmaxwell@gmail.comExperience
Education
University of California, Berkeley
Tufts University
Projects
Calif.'s newest homelessness solution is letting college kids sleep in their cars
04-09-2025
In the fall of 2021, Emma Johnson was ready to move into her new apartment and begin her senior year at UC San Diego. The school guarantees campus dorms for students’ first two years, but most juniors and seniors live off campus.
California teens are ditching office jobs — and making $100K before they turn 21
22-08-2025
It’s noon on a Thursday, but the day’s lunch break is already over and the cement building in Concord is once again full. Class is in session. A dozen students — most dressed in gray canvas button-downs and baseball caps — sit with rapt attention facing the whiteboard at the front of the room.
How to Survive an Internship in San Francisco
01-08-2025
It’s the dream: getting an internship in the big city. But amid the unicorns and rainbows, there are some challenges to being a summer intern. From finding a decent place to live to finding love and staying sane amid the chaos, SFGATE’s interns Summer and Nathan made the definitive guide.
WCCUSD schools are losing students to charter schools at alarming rate, stressing district budget
19-12-2024
The West Contra Costa Unified School District is losing students, and state funding, to charter schools at an alarming rate.
Bay Area town turns on recycling project
11-08-2025
A few weeks ago, Devan Lane and her husband were considering purchasing a newly built home in the Willowglen development in Rohnert Park, a city of 45,000 just south of Santa Rosa. Lane liked the idea of raising her 11-month-old daughter Charlotte in a neighborhood full of other kids...
Generation Z has opened the Pandora’s box of location sharing
15-07-2025
Whether a useful tool or a loathsome invasion of privacy, Generation Z has opened the Pandora’s box of location sharing. In 2022, a Harris Poll survey conducted for the New York Times found that 31% of Gen Z used location-sharing apps like Apple’s Find My.
WCCUSD investigates alleged ringers on football team, forcing Gauchos to forfeit 6 games
25-10-2024
The El Cerrito Gauchos forfeit 6 football games for "ineligible" players, prompting student walk-out, calls for coach to be reinstated.
WCCUSD test scores lag behind state, with sharp swings that show disparity among schools
20-12-2024
The majority of WCCUSD students did not meet state standards on the CAASPP standardized test last school year.
'Someone's always watching': Gen Z is spying on each other
16-07-2025
I watched in horror from my dorm room as three gray circles, labeled with the initials of my closest friends, slowly converged at the campus dining hall on the map displayed on my phone. It was my sophomore year of college...
