Study Hall Is Now In Session In Phoenix

Press release from the City of Phoenix:

May 16, 2020

The city of Phoenix is proud to launch the PHXTV Classroom “Study Hall," a collaborative effort between the city of Phoenix Council District 8, the city's TV station PHXTV and the Osborn and Roosevelt School Districts. This partnership is helping kids stay informed and educated during the shuttering of classrooms across Arizona. Beginning Monday, May 18, PHXTV will air a two-hour block of learning from 9-11 a.m., each weekday through most of the summer. “During the COVID-19 crisis, it's important to help families and our youth keep some sense of normalcy, especially when it comes to education," said Phoenix District 8 Councilmember Carlos Garcia, whose office helped create Study Hall. “Partnering with Roosevelt and Osborn School Districts for Study Hall programming is helping to keep the minds of our next generation growing and experiencing new things. I am extremely proud of this partnership, and look forward to future collaborations with our educators."

Topics for the Study Hall will include: Music, Math, Science, Spanish, Art, PE, Reading and Social Emotional Learning. In the first lessons, both districts' superintendents will host a reading session for the students. The lessons are meant to be educational, but also fun, engaging and even a bit challenging.

“I am incredibly excited and grateful that the Roosevelt School District is able to partner in such a meaningful and innovative way with the City of Phoenix and the Osborn School District," said Dr. Quintin Boyce, Roosevelt School District Superintendent. “We know this will have a tremendous impact on our kids and community during this difficult time. We are also proud to showcase the work of our talented and committed teachers who are constantly willing to go above and beyond for the students they serve."

“As we entered school closure, we knew within Osborn we would be able to come up with amazing resources for our families in a digital format, but knew we wouldn't be able to reach all families," said Dr. Michael Robert, Osborn School District Superintendent. “So to be approached by Councilman Garcia to embark on this partnership was amazing. Knowing we would reach more families and breach the digital divide through PHXTV made the work inspiring for our teachers. This has been an incredible opportunity to reach out beyond our district lines to reach families across Phoenix and showcase the amazing teachers we have in Osborn and Roosevelt! It goes to show the power of educators--to be able to reimagine your professional world, in a time of crisis, with no playbook on how to do it. Our teachers just buckled down and got the job done."

Dozens of teachers from these districts have been spending time recording their class lessons for TV broadcast so the students can watch and learn. They have been using the production studio of PHXTV along with pre-recording segments from their homes. “This has been a fantastic opportunity for PHXTV to leverage its talent and abilities to help some of our local school districts," said Deborah Sedillo Dugan, station manager for PHXTV. “We are taking the technical skills of our production team and mixing them with their gifted teachers from these districts and the result is something special and wonderful for these students."

Check out PHXTV Classroom TV Guide for special details about each lesson and a schedule of class topics, visit Phoenix.gov/PHXTV. For example if an upcoming art lesson will be focusing on a craft piece, the guide will detail what is needed for that lesson.

This press release was produced by the City of Phoenix. The views expressed here are the author’s own.