For 56 years, WHRO Public Media has been a community resource for Eastern Virginian citizens – addressing the issues that impact our community through the production of local broadcast, digital, and educational content. We are the only public station owned by a collaboration of local school districts and are proud of the work we do in education, which impacts 155,000 educators and over 1.2 million students across the Commonwealth of Virginia.
In addition to providing online professional development for teachers, we provide free access to more than 125,000 digital learning objects for every public, private, and home schooler in Virginia through our digital learning distribution platform eMediaVA. These learning objects include videos and other content from leading organizations such as the National Defense Education Program, NASA, the Smithsonian Museums, and local universities.
We also recently launched a new initiative to help individuals looking to earn their GED. Every school year, more than 1.2 million students drop out of high school in the United States. That’s one student every 26 seconds. In 2016, Hampton Roads had a 4.3 percent dropout rate. This is slightly below the Virginia rate of 5.3 percent. At WHRO, we’d like to change that. In partnership with Kentucky Educational Television, we have launched Fast Forward, an innovative learning system that helps students prepare for high school equivalency tests. Fast Forward provides online instruction in all test subject areas along with diagnostic pre-tests and individualized study plans. You can isit skillsonline.org to learn more about this exciting initiative along with the other workforce development courses we offer.
With the proposed budget cuts, these and WHRO Public Media’s other local initiatives are at risk. These include initiatives like the Great Computer Challenge, the traveling STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Van, original productions such as Comedy Bootcamp: The Documentary, and the Virginia’s Wall of Faces in support of veteran’s issues.
I am asking you, our faithful community of listeners, educators, viewers, parents, and families, to take action and Stand for WHRO today. There are several ways you can help:
1. Call your local representative today.
2. Sign the Protect My Public Media petition found at protectmypublicmedia.org.
3. Join the Stand For WHRO campaign by sharing your story on social media using #StandForWHRO or leaving us a message at 757.632.3186.
In the coming months we’ll need your support more than ever. Please act now. Thank you.