Maya Lora is The Baltimore Banner’s early childhood education reporter who covers how Maryland can best support young children and their families from pregnancy through kindergarten, a critical stage in brain development. She also covers private and independent schools, which incorporates the sprawling child care system as well as alternative education for older students. She considers the child welfare system and its effects on young children to be a part of that mission and she hopes to report more deeply on foster care and kinship care in Maryland. Maya previously covered diversity, equity and inclusion for The Baltimore Sun and strives to center equity and solution-based journalism in all of her work. She won a local journalism award for her work in covering the sexual abuse children suffered at the hands of those connected to the Archdiocese of Baltimore. A Florida native, Maya moved to Baltimore from the Lakeland Ledger, a Central Florida newspaper, where she spent two years covering growth and development and local government. She previously covered business and politics for The Hill in Washington, D.C. and the Miami Herald, her hometown paper. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and English from Washington and Lee University.