Promotional Spotlight Special Edition: Advance Local

Advance Local offers ‘School @ Home’ pages to engage young students during COVID-19 crisis

The closure of Pennsylvania schools due to the COVID-19 crisis has increased the need for educational activities for school-aged children in many households in the Commonwealth. Jeff Glick, director of enterprise content & design for Advance Local, parent company of PennLive/The Patriot-News (Harrisburg), knew the company needed to produce something to give back to the community, so he and his team worked quickly to put together the “School @ Home” pages. The pages began running on March 25, and Glick and the Advance Local team currently have enough content created to provide publication through May 31.

The “School @ Home” pages are geared toward school-aged children between kindergarten and eighth grade. The pages cover a new topic every day, and all the pages are available not only in print, but also digitally online – unrestricted by the subscriber paywall. Glick said the pages cover a wide variety of topics including math, science, geography, history and much more. “The lessons aren’t super in-depth – we know that we are not official educators,” said Glick. “What is really key though is that the pages are engaging.” It is this engagement that Glick and his team see as a success of the pages. Not only do they help maintain the student’s interest, they also serve to position Advance and its publications as a trusted educational partner to parents in the community. In fact, Glick has learned that many teachers in the communities that Advance’s papers serve are now requiring students to complete the “School @ Home” pages as part of their daily schoolwork activities.

The feedback from the parents and students has been positive, and Glick is proud that he and the Advance Local team could offer something educational to the younger generation during the COVID-19 crisis. While the project was not geared toward any advertising initiative, there is space and opportunity for the pages to feature a sponsor, and Glick said that several publications in the Advance family have already anchored sponsors for their pages. “That’s not what it’s really about though,” said Glick, “We’re in unchartered territory. We want to show that we are very involved in knowing and understanding what’s going on in our communities – and what’s important to them right now.”

For additional information, contact Jeff Glick at 615-879-6282 or jglick@advancelocal.com.

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