The summer is flying by and students will soon be returning to school. As the school year shapes up to look a little more normal than last year, our team of educators is looking forward to getting back out into the community and into classrooms. Each year, we dedicate one issue of Dimensions to highlighting our educational offerings. As you’ll see in this month’s issue, our education team has been hard at work.
Each year we feature several student competitions that take the staff months to prepare for and require a large number of community volunteers. These events are always a highlight for our local students. Since in-person events were not possible during the pandemic, our educators had to quickly find innovative ways to change these events into virtual competitions. They succeeded in creating phenomenal events for our annual regional spelling bee, Young Storytellers Writers Contest and the Great Computer Challenge. You’ll find the winners of these competitions listed on pages 11 and 12. Thank you to everyone who made these events so successful!
We’ve also seen an increase in usage of our eMediaVA, our repository of digital learning resources, all correlated and searchable by Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL). Both teachers and parents found it to be a valuable resource as they worked to keep students engaged and learning whether in classrooms or at home, and we offered webinars for those unfamiliar with the platform. We are also excited that we have started booking in-person visits again for our three van programs. Soon our literacy van, STEM van and new environmental van will be back out visiting schools, libraries and community centers.
Our digital learning team has a long history of developing online courses for divisions around the Commonwealth. Most recently, they have been busy creating five African American History online modules that are part of a new blended learning course for Virginia students. You can read about their work on this project on page 19. I hope you’ll take some time to read more details of the incredible work our educators are doing. I’m so proud of them!
I’m also excited that some in-person events have resumed in our community. LAVA Summer of Fun is being presented by WHRO Public Media & Out of the Box with Paul Shugrue. This series of concerts have been happening at local breweries thoughout the summer, and there are two more shows scheduled. Paul Shugrue will be at the concert on September 4, so I hope you will come out and say hello. Find details at whro.org/events
Lastly, thank you to everyone who donated to our summer radio and television membership drives! It is your generosity that makes our work in the field of education possible. As you know, WHRO Public Media was founded to support our local K–12 school divisions. Your faithful contributions ensure that education remains at the heart of all we do. Without you, none of the work we do would be possible. Thank you for your generosity!
Bert Schmidt President & Chief Executive Officer