(mellow upbeat music) (music continues) (music continues) - Hello and welcome to "Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

Access to out-of-school learning experiences is an important part of a child's education.

During this episode of "Journal" we're going to be joined by Kelly Pheneger from WBGU-PBS, Hannah Feffer, and Lexie Stelnicki, from the Community Learning Centers at the Wood County Educational Service Center.

In our first segment, Kelly Pheneger, WBGU director of Education and Outreach for the station.

Talk about all of the events, 'cause we know that education's now a year-round experience.

Just because school's going to end here in a few weeks, the academic year doesn't mean that children don't need access to other educational activities throughout the summer, so talk about some of the things that we've been doing, and things that we will be doing, the different things that we offer simply as a PBS station.

- Sure, so probably one of the first things I want to talk about is what we have available year-round, because those resources can be used, of course, for summer learning.

And that includes all of our great children's programming.

We have programming on from the early morning until early afternoon, Monday through Friday.

And all of our programs are designed to be not only entertaining, but they're designed to be educational.

So each one of our programs has embedded educational goals.

So kids are having a good time watching and they're not even aware sometimes that they're learning.

- [Steve] That they're learning.

- Yeah, and you know, TV's really changed over the years and a lot of what we watch is watching on devices.

Kids more and more are watching on what we call over-the-top devices, that's kind of our TV talk, but it's really just tablets, or telephones, or whatever kind of device might have an internet connection.

And so I just want all the viewers to know that if you have children or grandchildren, that there's great access to PBS KIDS videos through the PBS KIDS app.

So there's a PBS KIDS video app where kids can watch their favorite programs anytime, anywhere.

So that's something helpful to know.

So if, you know, maybe a better time for them to watch a program is a half hour program after dinner, you can access that on the app.

There are game apps.

There's a PBS KIDS Games app where you can download games so that kids could play them in the car.

And these are games that are appropriate for little kids like Daniel Tiger fans, those two and three year olds, up to even, you know, middle school and high school.

My older boys enjoyed playing some of the design and engineering games that were available.

So just know that there are digital resources available for you, but we also have a number of other resources that I want to talk about and you asked me about events.

So what we've been doing is we've been partnering with a lot of our local nonprofits.

So, you know, maybe that's another little buzzword that we use, but we're talking about organizations that serve the community like we do, like the Wood County Museum, our public libraries, just to name a few.

We're going to be out at the Defiance Lilac Festival in May.

So that's going to be exciting.

So come see us out there.

We go every year, so if you're watching this video after the next one, we'll be there again in May.

So look for that activity.

Anywhere where we might find families, and viewers, you know, whether they have kids or not.

Maybe they have grandchildren, or nieces and nephews, to tell them not only about our children's programming, but also tell them about some of the adult programming that we have as well, because we've got a lot of great educational adult programming as well.

So those are exciting things that are happening.

We are going to be partnering with, I know you had them on as a guest, the Wood County Museum.

They're having a Safety and Cruise-In event in May.

And It looks like it's becoming an annual event.

We'll be out there, too.

And we'll be helping the kids make first aid kits.

We'll be passing out books with safety and education themes.

We'll be showing off some of those resources that I talked to you about.

And there's just a lot of things happening.

If you want to know more about where we're going to be and what's happening in the community, I would really recommend that you subscribe to our e-newsletter, so that's our electronic newsletter.

We send it out every Friday morning, and we always have some type of educational story there.

- [Steve] Sure.

- Plus we have stories about maybe who you have, you know, as guests on "Journal."

We have a weekly movie that we broadcast that people really like that's on, I think, is that Saturday nights?

- [Steve] Yeah, Saturday nights.

- On Saturday nights.

So check out our website.

Go to wbgu.org, subscribe to our newsletter, and follow us on our social media, too.

We're on Instagram and Facebook.

So those are great ways to find out about what's going on.

- Yeah, well, and you mentioned the events, too, because I know last summer we were out at the Carter Historic Farm.

- [Kelly] Yes.

- And that was educational in a lot of ways, but a lot of it was, here's how farms worked back in the 1800s, and the early 1900s.

So for people who had never experienced that and kids, there were all of those activities and how to make different, you know, different kinds of foods and things based on what was available at a farm then, versus the way we purchase food or make food now.

- That reminds me, our parks are a really great partner for us as well.

So we share our resources with them and we also just like to help elevate and promote what's happening in the community as well.

So whenever we can do that by having a presence at one of those events, we're happy to do that.

And that's not just for Bowling Green, but for all of our viewing area in Lima, Findlay, Defiance, and all the towns in between, so, you know.

- Yeah, because you guys travel especially out to all of those events and bring an additional element because there's obviously already things going on there.

- Absolutely.

- There's educational things, there's entertainment, there's fun and games, but a lot of the things that we bring to the table and you guys do are things that are fun and games, and educational as you said.

- Sure.

- Sometimes the families and the kids don't even know they're learning something.

- Yeah.

- And they're just enjoying it.

- Sure.

- And that's probably the best combination.

- It sure is.

- As you look through the rest of this year, 'cause we've got just a moment or two here, what are some of the things that, because obviously there are lots of other things, and we'll have you back on later in the show to talk about some of those as well.

What are some of the plans for this summer?

I mean, last year the big story was "The Whale."

"The Whale" was out everywhere.

- Yeah.

- And if people haven't seen they can probably, there's lots of photos of that available on our website, too.

- Yeah, I actually just saw a picture of that from the Wood County Library.

I think they were looking for volunteens for their summer program, so.

Sometimes we look at what our public libraries summer reading program themes are, because we do a lot of partnering with them.

And I believe their theme this year is around Adventure, which is actually kind of a broad topic.

So we're looking to support the activities they do with some programming about exploring the outdoors.

And we're also working with our Educational Services Center.

You're going to see them a little bit later, Wood County Educational Services Center.

We're training, we're doing professional development with out-of-school time providers, so people that provide summer school programming we have these great resources called Camp-in-a-Box that include some of our children's programs, our PBS programs, but also some learning activities.

So part of our plan is that because we can't be everywhere 'cause there's just me and my colleague, Laural Kirchner, so there's just two of us for 19 counties.

So we do professional development training and hand people resources that they can easily implement.

So we're working with the professionals that you'll see in the next segments to facilitate some learning for out-of-school time learning in Wood County.

And then we're also working with our libraries and other YMCA groups.

We're working with Findlay YMCA.

So that's part of our plan, too, so.

Not only are we going to get out to a lot of libraries and community events, but we're also going to be training those individuals at other organizations that provide out-of-school time learning.

- [Steve] Yeah, so it's going to be going to be a busy summer like usual.

- Yeah, it is, is.

- [Steve] Which is good, so yeah, good, good.

- We have a lot of fun.

- Okay, we'll have you back on a little bit later in the program.

Coming up in just a moment right after this break, we'll be talking with Hannah Feffer and Lexie Stelnicki from the Wood County Educational Service Center.

Back in just a moment here on the "Journal."

Thank you for staying with us on the "Journal."

Our guests in this segment are Hannah Feffer, and Lexie Stelnicki, from the Wood County Educational Service Center.

And we're talking about out-of-school programs for children 'cause as we said at the beginning of the program, education is year-round, almost 24/7 these days.

And especially, too, now that kids have all of these other things that distract them from the things that we would've done when we were children.

Hannah, talk about the Educational Service Center and kind of your general, you have programs of before and afterschool programs.

We're going to talk about what goes on in the summer, too, but you have a whole array of things that deal with those outside of school hours educational opportunities.

- Yeah, yeah, so we're the Community Learning Centers.

We're housed out of the Wood County Educational Service Center.

The Wood County ESC is kind of what we call a menu for our local districts.

And they provide all sorts of programming and the Community Learning Centers is one of them.

So we provide before and afterschool programming at seven districts in Wood County, one in Lucas County, and nine locations.

So we have before programming from 6:30 to 9:00 AM where the kids get to come in, eat breakfast, they do some homework, catch up, they learn curriculum, hands-on curriculum, go outside, get their wiggles out before school starts.

Afterschool programming is also happening at all of our locations.

And so again, they come in, they eat snack.

We're also partnered with Connecting Kids to Meals out of Toledo, which is an amazing program.

They provide hot meals for three of our locations, which is amazing.

So the kids get to eat a warm meal before they go home.

Additionally, get their wiggles out, do programming and curriculum that that Lexie creates, which is amazing.

Homework help intervention.

We bring in tutors, partner with BGSU, Owens, Toledo, and Findlay, to make sure that they have those role models and hands-on learning that they need and help with their homework, so.

We're here to support them in the best way we can and give them holistic education and approach so they can, you know, get everything they need before they head home.

- Yeah, well, and the good news as you said it's sort of like you prep them before the school day and then you also then are able to access them afterwards and kind of keep them in that somewhat structured environment, but at the same time, one that they enjoy, and it's educational at the same time.

Lexie, talk about some of the curriculum because Hannah mentioned that.

So what are some of the things as you sit down to say, okay, here's what we're going to do in this afterschool program, and does it vary from from school to school?

How do you manage that?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So it's kind of, it does vary from school to school.

We have some of our enrichment programs, our intervention programs.

So, Maumee is an intervention program that focuses on makerspace items and homework help, and things of that nature.

We have Canine Crew, which is over at Rossford, that focuses on reading interventions, which is awesome.

So the curriculum's kind of tailored to those different sites.

Overall, though, our summer theme this summer is Lights, Camera, Action!

So it's fitting with the show today.

(Steve laughs) And so all of our curriculum is kind of centered around an educational approach to Hollywood and lights, camera, action.

We're doing a We Act center, where kids are going to learn the basics, the very basics of acting and voice.

I even threw in some circus interventions, and things of that nature, but a lot of it has reading and math components based into it as well.

So we're still getting that educational approach to any of the curriculum that we do.

And then, of course, we throw in some splash days and some pool days.

So the kids have some water fun and some field trip fun, and a whole bunch of other things like that that rounds out their summer education.

- Yeah, well, and I think the thing, as you describe it, and there's lots of great programs that are available to watch and that sort of thing, but this is actually direct involvement hands-on.

They participate, they're doing things, along with some of the other enhancements that go with that, but it really does get them involved in actually making something, doing something, interacting with each other, which obviously we know is important, too, for socialization, that kind of thing.

When you plan this summer program, what are some of the things you have to consider?

I mean, 'cause every year you can't just do the same thing, obviously, because kids are quickly easily bored by, oh, I did that a week ago, a month ago.

I did that an hour ago, five minutes ago.

Show me something new.

So what's the challenge like for that?

Because you have to constantly be coming up with new ways to get their attention, get them involved, so how do you do that?

- So I think a lot of it is looking at those fads, or those trends that are going on, seeing what the kids are really interested in and learning about right now.

And then looking to some of our resources, like Ohio Learns 360, PBS Camp-in-a-Boxes, and things of that nature to kind of round out our experiences.

And so when we do partner with Camp-in-a-Box, for instance, those kids are getting a full new experience and diving into something that they haven't done before, or the field trips will center some of our curriculum around the field trips that they're going to so that we know that they're learning before they go on the field trips, after they go on the field trips, the whole roundabout way of going on it, so.

We really look at the experiences that they can do, and how we can center education around those experiences.

- Yeah, now, Hannah, when you look at this from the larger picture and you talked about all the different universities and groups you're involved in, I'm sure every year it's a challenge to build that in.

There are people, obviously, at all those other institutions that are helping, but how do you approach that?

And especially if you're looking to branch out, add new participants.

- [Hannah] Locations.

- Yeah, how does that work?

- Well, I will say that most of our locations are grant funded.

So we're 21st Century ODE grant funded, which is an amazing thing to be, to help fund our locations and programs and to assist with our families, but to branch out into those universities, that is where the magic is, you know.

All of these young professionals that are seeking education careers, or they want to be.

Human development family studies from BGSU is a big one, but anyone who wants to make an impact or difference in this world, we bring them into our program.

And so we say, do you want to build marketing for our program?

Would you like to work hands-on with the students?

Maybe they're behavior-focused, or education-focused, whatever it is.

So we really thrive when we are able to bring in those students and work with them.

And then it also has the kids, you know, looking up to them with role models and where do you go to school, and how can I be like you?

So it's really important for us to have those collaborative partnerships with the universities to help bring a holistic, nice package to our students and the families.

- Yeah, well, and then you've both mentioned that, too, that one of the things that the children, the participants see people acting in these roles With these skill sets and the interaction, that sort of thing.

And that's incredibly important because people say, oh look, I could do that, too.

Yeah, that's an opportunity.

Like the summer program runs through, what kind of an assessment do you do at the end of it and say, well, this worked really well.

We're not going to do this again, or the kids seem to really like this, but they didn't seem at all interested in that.

How do you deal with that assessment?

'Cause, I mean, hopefully everything hits the bullseye.

Everything's, like, right on, but we know that kids are, you know, probably from week to week, it's like, well, it worked really well last week.

This week they have no interest at all in that.

So how do you deal with that?

'Cause you have to look at the end of the year and go, okay, we did this, what are we going to do next?

That kind of thing.

- So I think it's really important to bring our site supervisors into that conversation as well, because they're the ones out in the field doing hands-on activities with the kids all summer long.

And so we have conversations with them of, hey, what did go well?

Hey, what's not going well?

But my favorite part of the whole summer interaction and the assessment afterwards is those parts that you wouldn't think are the parts that hit off.

So we have a lot of those enrichment guests from universities, and people coming in and things of that nature, and our staff as well.

And some of those staff and members and enrichment guests bring talents that we didn't even know they had.

So we have some musical guests, and things of that nature, that we didn't know were going to come to the program.

And so we kind of build off of that as well.

So let's say we have a staff member who loves music and loves anything musical, and so they bring their guitars in, and they help with the kids and things of that nature.

And so it's really just building off of those experiences and figuring out what we can do for the next semester, or the next school year as well.

- [Steve] Yeah, that's true, 'cause you have to be nimble, so yeah.

- Yes.

- When we come back we can talk more about that.

We'll be joined by Kelly again, too, but yeah, just the range and the sort of variety of things that are available and the ability to say, hey, that's going to work.

Let's be quick on our feet here.

Back in just a moment with Hannah Feffer, Lexie Stelnicki, and Kelly Pheneger here on the "Journal."

Thank you for staying with us here on the "Journal."

We're joined by Kelly Pheneger, Lexie Stelnicki, and Hannah Feffer.

And we've talked individually about the different programs and the interaction that both the PBS station, our station does, and the folks at Wood County Educational Service Center, the Community Learning Centers, but you guys are partners as you guys have all talked about with many other organizations, but you're also partnered with each other.

So, Kelly, talk about the partnership that we have with these out-of-school programs with Lexie and with Hannah.

- Sure, so a couple years ago, we were lucky enough to get some wonderful supportive funding from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce to enrich out-of-school time learning.

And we have developed resources.

We talked a little bit about the Camp-in-a-Box resources.

That's a five-day camp of about an hour or two of activities, plus all the resources they need.

So we have these resources that we built as PBS stations around our children's programming, sometimes for motivation for a theme.

And we pull in some of our other PBS resources, but we just have all of these, we have these boxes, but we wanted to work with the partners who are working with kids in enrichment and out-of-school time learning experiences because you're the experts.

So what we've done is we've reached out to our fabulous partners, like the Wood County Educational Services Center, and the libraries around to train them to do professional development to say, here are the resource elements that we have, this is how you might be able to implement it.

We always know that professionals will take their own spin on things, which we want them to do.

We want them to adapt the materials for their audiences.

And so Wood County Educational Services Center has been one of our best partners because they've been consistently, you know, with us.

I think I did an in-person training with your staff way back at the beginning.

And since then, about every quarter, so every few months we come out with these new camp boxes, these PBS themed camp boxes, and we do now virtual trainings with your audiences.

And my colleague, Laural Kirchner, she's done such a nice job with you all.

I know you said, you know, as some of our grant funding is wrapping up a little bit, what did you say when we saw you?

- Yeah, all of our sales staff, and all of our students were concerned about what was going to happen to Laural, or how lovely Laural is, like, that was the number one question.

What's going to happen next?

How do we continue this?

And so this summer we're using What's Your Superpower, and Be Creative, because those themes kind of fit into our Hollywood theme of just kind of embracing talents and embracing powers for our students.

So we kind of love that they incorporate the two into our program.

- Yeah, so they have those two themes that you mentioned are themes of boxes.

And these boxes are about this big.

And so there's a facilitator's guidance side that helps their teachers facilitate those activities, and then all the materials that they need.

And then we like to, Laural does a really nice job of adding in some, well, what's more?

Like, how can you use this activity, for instance, to teach kids informational literacy, or STEM, some science inquiry, or whatever that may be so there's a lot of them.

- Yeah, and our staff has done a really nice job, too, of extending that.

So we've actually taken the boxes and we've made them into PowerPoints and presentations for our students and our staff.

- Oh, good.

- And then our students then, or our staff then can build off of it as well.

So sometimes we have an activity and then they go into a different direction of doing more of that activity as well.

One of which being instruments that we've built and doing, I know I keep talking about music, but the kids love anything that makes noise.

(Steve laughs) So, like, they've done bands, or, like, goofy things like that with some of the materials that have been in those boxes, so yeah.

- Well, it's been so great that we've been able to, you know, be lucky enough to have this funding and to be able to purchase these materials that are ready to go and ready to use, but even if funding, you know, situations change, we're still going to be there.

I assured you we're still going to be there to support you because, you know, as a PBS station, we have access to a lot of really wonderful resources, not just content that we've produced, although we've produced some things that we're really proud of like our eclipse videos and our financial literacy series, but, you know, we're tapping into over 300 public television stations across the nation.

Their resources that they've developed and we can say, hey, what about this?

Maybe you can integrate, you know, this resource with this theme.

So I feel really confident that as we move forward, we'll be able to continue to support you, you know.

It's just a real pleasure for us to be able to use our resources to help make what you do, you know.

- Yeah.

- A little bit easier, sure.

- We are open all summer for 11 and a half hours a day.

So I cannot tell you how important it is to have partners like this that are able to provide curriculum or materials, or fun, exciting things like you were talking about earlier, how do you entertain these kids, you know?

Eventually they get burned out from so many things.

So bringing in these new boxes and keeping it fresh and entertaining for them to keep learning fun because that's an important part, so they keep coming back, yeah.

- Absolutely, and I loved, I was listening to the segment where you two were on by yourselves, and you were talking about, you know, different people in the community with different talents coming in and supporting you as well.

And I know that you have all kinds of community partners, so, you know, we really all do it together.

- Yeah, so true.

- [Steve] Sure, uh-hmm.

- Which is really great.

And, you know, we don't take the place of what the school does or what the parents do, but we hope to enrich those opportunities, and help even, you know, I know all of you do what you can, too, to help educate parents and support them in the work that we do with children, because parents and grandparents and family members are kids first teachers.

So whatever we can do to support them as well and extend what's happening, you know, in places like your programs, too.

Like, well, now what can we do at home as well?

- And we love that Ohio Learns 360 has those resources for the parents on their website as well.

So they can look at webinars, or virtual field trips, or things to do outside of school days with their kids as well.

So even they can build on what to do during the summer, or where to go or what to do, so yeah.

- Well, and listening to this, you know, obviously the flexibility because there are seeds that are planted, whether it's the Camp-in-the-Box, or all of these other programs, but what's really amazing is that the people that are there take that and then move it beyond just that in whatever direction fits best for their particular location, or group of students, or parents.

And as you said, too, just now when you were talking, Lexie, about the fact that, you know, parents have a million things to do.

This is a way that they don't have to think of this.

Like, oh, how am I going to create a field trip?

Well, we can't go, but hey, here's a resource.

My child can sit down and watch this, or participate in one of these programs and I don't have to be handling that as well as the day-to-day everything that parents have to do, so, it helps them immensely as well.

And then gets them thinking about, oh, well, hmm, I can do this.

They feel comfortable, too, about it, yeah, yeah.

- We have some great, you mentioned field trips, and, you know, whenever we can get there in person, we want to do that.

- [Steve] Sure.

- But it's not always possible.

So sometimes, you know, we're a great resource for virtual field trips.

We just produced one on the historic canal boat experience over at the Miami Erie Canal.

There's another one that was produced about the Toledo Museum of Art, and they're really well done.

So I would encourage you to go to the ohiolearns360.org website, or go to wbgu.org and look in our education section, because we have a lot of really nice resources there, including Camp-in-a-Box information like we just talked about, 'cause you could even use some of those activities with your children as well.

So all of these elements are flexible, like you mentioned.

And then the family webinars are really great.

I know we have a webinar on helping children with test anxiety.

The springtime is kind of the testing time.

- Yeah.

- Very much so.

- [Steve] Oh boy.

- And you know what I do as a parent, sometimes I will not necessarily always physically watch it.

I will turn it on and listen to the webinar as I'm like, maybe prepping dinner or doing some dishes, or whatever.

And so I would encourage you to check those things out.

- Now if people want to find out more about the Community Learning Center, what's the simplest way there?

Obviously website, social media, that sort of thing, but that's where they can find out more detail 'cause there's just an incredible list of content there.

I was looking through it, so yeah.

Yeah.

- So if a student or a student that you know is interested in registering for a summer camp, you would just go to our website, which is www.wcesc.org, which stands for Wood County Educational Service Center.

The Community Learning Centers has a tab.

You'll click on that.

It'll take you right to our registration portal.

From there, we'll get you into the program and get you some amazing resources and keep your kid busy this summer.

- Great, well, yeah.

Hannah Feffer, Lexie Stelnicki, Kelly Pheneger, thank you so much.

Wonderful things going on.

And, obviously, education as I mentioned at the beginning the program it's not a nine to five, it's a 24/7, 365 situation.

So it's great to know that all these resources are out there and all the incredible people that work in this field.

You can check us out at wbgu.org.

You can watch us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM here on WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Goodnight and good luck.

(upbeat music)