As schools close across the state in response to the coronavirus outbreak, many parents now find themselves struggling to keep their kids busy and learning. WGBH Morning Edition host Joe Mathieu spoke with WGBH's President and CEO, Jon Abbott, about a new partnership with the state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to help supplement learning resources while schools are closed. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.
Joe Mathieu: You're, of course, working from home, as many people at WGBH are this week. And Jon, this is a program aimed at K-12 students. I know this just came together. What is it you're working up?
Jon Abbott: Well, we are recognizing that we have a trove of resources that we built over the last almost two decades, resources that are available online that we've been working with teachers to provide to students across the country, and very much so in the commonwealth. And we want to make sure that we use this moment to support the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, teachers and parents in helping families and students stay active with their learning.
We have a remarkable digital set of collections on what's called PBS Learning Media. We have over 60 percent of K-12 educators in the commonwealth already registered on the platform. They are free [and] they are correlated with our state curriculum frameworks by subject [and] by grade, so we think that's a terrific set of digital resources that should help kids and should help our students. That's what we're excited to be able to do.
On the other hand, we recognize in collaboration with the state and with [DESE Commissioner] Jeff Riley of the department that there are, sadly, many kids who may not have access — who do not have access — to broadband, digital access capacity or computers. And so what we're going to do is augment what we're doing online with the commitment of our broadcast time during the day for a schedule of lessons that we'll put together with the department, so that over-the-air broadcast across the entire commonwealth can be an additional supplementary resource to help kids stay engaged with their learning.
Mathieu: Will that be our existing content on WGBH broadcast platforms or will there be specific content tailored to this new program?
Abbott: That's a great question. We're hoping it's going to be both. We have remarkable resources from NOVA, from American Experience and a trove of projects and programs that we produce each year, each of which typically has curriculum associated with it. All of that is accessible. So we'll be looking at leveraging our library so that that's a rich resource for students to watch on television, but also working with the department to figure out if we can build out a set of new teaching resources where we may be able to put instruction on air.
Ironically, this is something that was in WGBH's origin story. We began, decades ago, putting teachers on the air to expand and democratize access to learning and to classroom experiences. So we're in a way going back to the future as we recognize that we've got to serve all the kids in the commonwealth and support all of our families and all of our teachers.
Mathieu: It's the essence of public media.
Abbott: We don't have it all mapped yet, but like everyone in their walks of life trying to figure out [how] to adapt to these times, we're going to figure out all that we can do to be of help. I'm so proud of our staff [and] everyone working so hard to figure out what it is we can do to keep students active and excited about their learning.
