Marissa Perlman, CBS News Chicago reporter, was named the 2025-2026 Distinguished Alumni by Dr. Mark Maranto while live on television during a “School Spotlight” segment featuring Glenbrook South.
Perlman, who graduated in 2008, was shocked when Maranto, Assistant Principal of Student Activities, pulled back the cover on the Distinguished Alumni photo, which hangs in the Attendance Office Hallway. Perlman, who has worked for CBS Chicago for four years, got her start in journalism as Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Oracle, she said.
“I signed up for The Oracle class on a whim,” Perlman said. “I signed up for it thinking ‘Maybe this is something that I would want to do’. And that became my career 15 years later.”
Perlman credits much of her success in the beginning of her journalism career to Marshall Harris, English Teacher and The Oracle’s Assistant Adviser. Harris was the paper’s adviser when Perlman was a student, and he encouraged her to apply for Editor-in-Chief her junior year.
“She checked all of the boxes for writing skills, layout skills, communication, and collaboration,” Harris said. “But what was most important at that time, and what stood out to me the most, was her ambition and drive.”
After graduating, Perlman pursued a Bachelor of Science in Broadcast Journalism at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications. Her professional career began in the small town of Elmira, NY, where she covered stories like city council meetings, she said. Eventually, she worked her way up to reporting on larger stories while at CBS in Sacramento, CA before coming to the Chicago station, Perlman said.
“In smaller TV markets, you’re kind of a one-woman show, so it’s nice now to be able to have a community, a support in a newsroom that just comes with time and experience,” Perlman said.
The Distinguished Alumni award is selected by the building administrative team from staff and community nominations, Maranto said. Distinguished Alumni’s responsibilities include giving a speech at the Honors and Awards Ceremony in May, and selecting a school project or extracurricular to donate $1,000, Maranto said.
“Perlman is very established in her profession, and her journey is cool because here she was an Oracle chief, and she was not in the TV program,” Maranto said. “It was at Syracuse where she discovered her passion for broadcast.”
Perlman’s passion project for the past two-and-a-half years is a series on domestic violence. The series earned Perlman a Gracie Award, an award for women in media, for Investigative Feature. The series helped affect change in the community, Perlman said.
“After our stories, there have been some changes,” Perlman said. “Nothing massive yet, but it’s something that we continue to investigate, because it’s something that we saw that shouldn’t be happening.”
As the next Distinguished Alum, Perlman’s legacy will be cemented on a plaque in the Attendance Office Hallway along with all of the previous Distinguished Alumni and Distinguished Teachers.
“You look at that wall when you’re in high school, and then to come back and to see all of these incredible humans on this wall from so many diverse backgrounds,” Perlman said. “It just means so much that after dedicating your life to something, it’s recognized by the community that means the most.”