To provide homebound students with regular, continuing instruction in these uncertain times, PBS39 recently launched Lehigh Valley Learns - a weekday, over-the-air, distance learning program.

Speaking with The Press March 27 by phone, Victoria Scialfa, public relations and marketing manager for Lehigh Valley Public Media, PBS39’s parent organization, said Lehigh Valley Learns was created in response to Gov. Tom Wolf’s recent order to close schools statewide until at least April 6 to stem the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Lehigh Valley Learns was developed in a week’s time as a partnership between PBS39 and local districts, including the Allentown and Bethlehem Area school districts.

“We have an education department in-house at PBS39 of folks that are qualified in the education realm to be delivering curriculum and they worked hand in hand with the school districts,” Scialfa said.

“They pieced together a custom-made program.

“This isn’t just repurposed content; it’s very specific to the week-by-week lesson plans that teachers already had established.”

The weekday broadcasts are designed specifically for kindergarten through fifth grade students and consist of a variety of PBS programs - including “Curious George,” “History Detectives,” “Nova” and “Arthur,” among others.

This curriculum will educate students in mathematics, social studies, English Language Arts, and science as well as “important foundational early-learning skills like literacy and social-emotional development.”

Scialfa said Lehigh Valley Learns is unique because of the work done by the station and districts to ensure the programming mirrored the content being taught in schools.

“Our content is custom-made through our education team and our local educators, and we took very specific care to make sure the curriculum aligned with what students were going to be learning in the classroom had this never happened,” she said. “It is a really detailed curriculum.”

To ensure that Lehigh Valley Learns’ broadcasts are appropriate for students’ continued education, Scialfa said the scheduled programming is a “marriage” between PBS content and the Pennsylvania educational standards and national Common Core standards which traditionally guide and dictate school districts’ curricula.

“They’re still going to continue their schooling as if they were in that classroom; that curriculum is not changing,” she said. “We kind of cherry-pick some of our shows which relate to the curriculum and then we design the assignments around it.”

Additionally, Scialfa said via email, the PBS team was in conversations with district and statewide educators for students to earn classroom credit for distance learning done through Lehigh Valley Learns, and that more information would follow as the program continues to be developed.

“There’s a statistic that 40 percent of households in Allentown do not have access to the Internet,” she said, “and that’s a really big barrier when we talk about teachers saying ‘just go home and get on the Internet’ … not everyone can really do that.

“We are delivering a curriculum to students in the greater Lehigh Valley that does not require internet access.”

Scialfa said Lehigh Valley Learns’ educational goals also complement an ongoing initiative supported by PBS39 called Lehigh Valley Reads, which aims to increase the literacy rate of all students in the region by 2025.

“Lehigh Valley Learns is very important because the coronavirus outbreak could stunt the literacy rate,” she said.

“We don’t want that to happen, and that’s why we’re making sure that kids have the correct and strong curriculum to continue with them throughout this remote learning process so that the literacy rate does not drop in elementary age children.”

Scialfa said the station is prepared to offer the Lehigh Valley Learns distance learning program for as long as schools remain closed, adding that further development on the program will continue after its March 30 launch to ensure that students will receive proficient educational programming.

“That’s really important,” she said. “This is really where the power of public broadcast comes to the rescue.”

Lehigh Valley Learns kindergarten through second grade programming will be shown on PBS39, No. 39.1 by antenna (Also available on Blue Ridge No. 12, Service Electric No. 512/12, RCN No. 1008/8, FiOS No. 539, Dish No. 8168/39, and DirecTV No. 39).

·7:30-10 a.m. kindergarten;

·10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. first grade;

·12:30-3 p.m. second grade.

Third through fifth grade programs will be broadcast on PBS39 Extra, No. 35.1 by antenna (Also available on Blue Ridge No. 124, Service Electric No. 53, RCN No. 38, Comcast No. 1035, FiOS No. 35 and DirecTV No. 35)

·9:30 a.m.-noon third grade;

·Noon to 2:30 p.m. fourth grade;

·2:30-5 p.m. fifth grade.

All programs can also be streamed live online from the Lehigh Valley Learns webpage.

Additional information about Lehigh Valley Learns’ broadcast schedules and other remote educational programs can be found on PBS39’s Distance Learning website at wlvt.org/education/distance-learning.