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Statement From Scott Kinney, Discovery Education President of K-12 Education, on Discovery Education’s Response to the Worldwide Coronavirus Outbreak

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Silver Spring, Md. (March 5, 2020) As a global company serving 4.5 million educators and 45 million students in 140 countries and territories around the world, Discovery Education has been monitoring the recent Coronavirus outbreak closely.  Like educators everywhere, we are concerned about the Coronavirus’ potential impact on student learning in the unfortunate event schools or school systems are closed for extended periods of time.

So, to help schools and the communities they serve maintain continuity of learning in the event of prolonged school closures due to the Coronavirus, Discovery Education has created a three-pronged response.  The elements of our response are as follows:

  1. Discovery Education has created a special channel within Discovery Education Experience—the Viruses and Outbreak Channel—featuring digital content that helps educators discuss the Coronavirus outbreak with students. This content includes timely updates on what the Coronavirus is, information on how infectious diseases spread, and essential guidelines for staying healthy.  Schools and school systems with access to Discovery Education Experience can find these resources here.
  2. We have worked with our content partners to make the Viruses and Outbreak Channel available to the communities our U.S. school systems serve so that parents, caregivers, and other adults have the same access to the materials children are being taught in schools. If you are a Discovery Education partner and are interested in obtaining a login for the Viruses and Outbreak Channel that you can send to members of your community, please fill out the Experience Access Request form.
  3. For U.S. schools or school systems that are not currently using Discovery Education resources, but are experiencing closures due to the Coronavirus, we are offering free access to Discovery Education Experience through the remainder of the school year. To request access to Discovery Education Experience, principals and superintendents of affected school or school districts are encouraged to are encouraged to fill out the Experience Access Request form.  We’d like to thank our friends at CoSN for helping to spread the word of this offer to their membership.

Discovery Education is a company whose mission is to prepare learners for future success by connecting them to the world outside the classroom.  So, when the world outside the classroom threatens the continuity of instruction, we believe it is critical that we support teachers in explaining events like the Coronavirus outbreak to students and support administrators in maintaining continuity in students’ learning.  We will continue to monitor this event closely and look for ways to help educators everywhere prepare students for success, no matter where they are.

Sincerely,

Scott Kinney
Discovery Education
President of K-12 Education