WUCF TV, Central Florida’s PBS station, is honored to announce that it has been named a finalist by the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA) for the 52nd Annual Public Media Awards presented by NETA. WUCF was nominated in two categories including COVID-19 Education – WUCF At-Home Learning and COVID-19 Content – Meet the Helpers Coronavirus Interstitial Series.
Within the COVID-19 Education category, WUCF launched a new television schedule to help preK-12 students learn at home and increased online remote learning resources following the closure of Central Florida schools in March. WUCF also engaged with all of nine of the county school districts, local governments and educational agencies to help spread the information to families, hosted one-on-one and group virtual trainings to connect educators to PBS LearningMedia and provided printed materials to support at-home learning, produced new videos to introduce children to important helpers, and shifted in-person events including family events and screenings to virtual events.
The Meet the Helpers Coronavirus Interstitial Series in the COVID-19 Content category came from WUCF’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The team developed a series of short videos under the Meet the Helpers initiative to help parents, caregivers, teachers and others talk to children about the pandemic and give them tools to help keep their families healthy.
“As Central Florida’s Storytellers, it is wonderful to be recognized for the work we have done during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dr. Phil Hoffman, WUCF executive director. “We wanted to make sure our home community as well as the national community could benefit from the COVID-19 content and at-home learning resources we continue to develop.”
The Public Media Awards honor public television’s best work in education, community engagement, marketing/communications and content. Awards are judged by a group of expert panelists within the public media system, as well as industry professionals outside of public media.
