Utah school district develops a model for news literacy professional learning

When it comes to natural beauty, Utah’s landscape never fails to impress. If you’re looking for that same reaction to the news literacy landscape, Utah’s Canyons School District delivers.

The school system created a professional learning initiative for teaching media and news literacy through NLP’s District Fellowship Program that has become a model for the state. “They have done a great job planning for a districtwide news literacy initiative. They have great district leads, discipline leads and educators who see news literacy education professional learning as their responsibility,” said Shaelynn Farnsworth, NLP’s senior director of education partnership strategy.

“We were already in discussion about how to improve information literacy, and NLP was an obvious choice for the partner,” Gretchen Zaitzeff said. She is the district’s library media specialist.

Hard work and serendipity

Lesli Morris, high school ELA specialist and a member of the district’s information literacy team, said Zaitzeff got the ball rolling. “Gretchen was at the forefront. She started us thinking about information literacy.”

Through Zaitzeff’s impetus, simultaneous efforts across the district and a dash of serendipity, the program fell into place. Morris became a member of NLP’s News Literacy Ambassador Program, which supports educators doing news literacy work in their communities. Utah passed legislation requiring civics education that included an information literacy component. (Retired teacher and school principal State Rep. Dan N. Johnson sponsored the legislation.) And the state awarded Jodi Ide, a high school social studies specialist, a competitive $250,000 grant for professional learning, which is part of the civics education legislation.

Support at the state level

The district also has a strong supporter at the Utah Department of Education in Davina Sauthoff, library media specialist lead. “Davina is a huge advocate of our work,” Farnsworth said.

Sauthoff said the district’s approach sets it apart. “I love how Canyons is building the capacity of information literacy skills with all educators, not just librarians or ELA teachers,” she said. “It’s a unique model to intentionally include all content area teachers from kindergarten through high school. I’m very excited about that.”

The initial year included 110 middle and high school educators in social studies and ELA, as well as teacher librarians and instructional coaches. They met in person or worked online asynchronously for eight months, voluntarily. This fall, secondary educators in all disciplines are participating. And next year, the program will expand to include elementary educators. That means teachers across grade levels and subjects in the 33,000-student district can join.

Sauthoff said Canyons’ program has inspired other districts that want to create similar initiatives. “Every district can choose to integrate news and media literacy the way they want. We find it important that districts build what makes the most sense for their communities,” she said.

Empowering educators

The response to the first year was overwhelmingly positive. Teachers read ahead in coursework and shared resources in school and with their families. Educator feedback indicated an interest in continued support and resources, which the team is incorporating.

“This needs to be something built with a structure for sustaining it because this is essential to saving democracy,” Ide said.

Morris, the ELA specialist, agreed. “Our democracy will not survive if our citizens are not making accurate, informed decisions,” she said. “People act on the information they have. If they have poor information, their decisions might be poor.”

News Literacy Ambassador Program welcomes six new educators

The News Literacy Ambassador Program is a national initiative to mobilize educators in the fight against misinformation and is a key component of NLP’s NewsLitNation, a network of news literacy educators. Ambassadors are essential to NLP’s effort to build a more news-literate nation, and, in turn, a more robust, equitable democracy.

Ambassadors work at the grassroots level in their communities, organizing colleagues and allies to help advocate for news literacy education. Their work is critical to turning NLP’s mission into a movement with a transformative impact on young people around the nation.

“Educators around the country often feel like they are alone in this journey, so being able to connect with a fellow educator who can relate to their experiences, knows the local education landscape and has the expertise needed to help them succeed helps empower and expand their capacity,” said Miriam Romais, director, NewsLitNation. “The ability to recognize credible information is a critical life skill, and in many areas of the country teachers lack access to quality teaching resources that are free and nonpartisan. We aim to help fill that gap.”

NLP has expanded this program to 16 ambassadors, recently welcoming six educators in key states from Ohio, Illinois, New Mexico, Texas and Utah.

Meet our new ambassadors below and visit NewsLit Nation to learn more about the entire group.

Juan Alvarado, high school ELA Educator, Texas

Juan was born and raised in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, and emigrated to South Texas with his parents in 1988. He teaches at Valley View High School in Pharr-Hidalgo, Texas, as an English, STEM and Pre-AP teacher. In 2017 Alvarado became the high school journalism and ready-writing coach, and one year later his students won the first-ever Academic District Championship title in journalism.

Juan Armijo, director of social studies, New Mexico

Juan teaches AP United States government, as well as politics and principles of democracy, at Mayfield High School in the Las Cruces Public Schools System. He has participated in the development of the new Social Studies Standards and Benchmarks (High School Civics) for the state of New Mexico and was part of the Materials Review Institute for the adoption of a new social studies textbook.

Jocelyn Burlew, learning experience designer, Ohio

Jocelyn uses culturally responsive practices to cultivate a classroom environment that places students at the heart of the learning process. She taught fifth grade English Language Arts and middle school social studies. She recently designed a middle school elective focused on digital, information and media literacy to help students become competent, literate, informed participants in society.

David Doerr, high school journalism and career and technology education teacher, Texas

David has taught journalism and career and technology classes in the Austin Independent School District since 2010, serving as a faculty adviser for student publications. He is the chair of the Texas Association of Journalism Educators’ Legislative Committee and Policy Committee. TAJE supports the efforts of scholastic journalism by providing conventions, contests and resources to teachers and students.

Lesli Morris, ELA teacher, Utah

Lesli is a high school ELA teacher and instructional system design specialist for Canyons School District in Sandy, Utah. She has taught high school in a variety of settings — from youth in custody to a National Blue Ribbon high school. One of her goals is to relentlessly promote diversity and pursue equity in education through access to quality curriculum and by supporting teachers with research-based instructional practices.

Sean Scanlon, director of curriculum, Illinois

Sean, who has a master’s in educational leadership, is the director of curriculum and instruction at Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, Illinois. He created the Catholic EdTech Summit and hosted EdCamp Chicago. His passion is to help teachers integrate technology in ways that can engage students, while also helping them navigate the ever-shifting landscape of news literacy.

Mission to movement: Quarterly updates on NLP’s movement building work

September – December 2022

Each quarter, the Movement Building work updates will keep you in tune with the efforts of NLP and our educator network toward making media literacy education a priority across the U.S. and creating a future founded on facts.

Our community of invested supporters enables NLP’s work, both inside and outside of the classroom. This commitment and interest allow us to continue to influence the media literacy landscape and fuel an achievable national initiative that equips people of all backgrounds with knowledge and skills to be active, informed participants in civic life.

Movement Builders in the Field

NLP’s NewsLitNation News Literacy Ambassadors and district partners defend democracy and promote news literacy in their classrooms and at the school district level.

District Fellowship program

NLP’s District Fellowship program brings together district leaders to build a sustainable and actionable plan for news literacy education implementation in their districts. During their two-year commitment to this program, fellows perform a needs-assessment and identify the grades and disciplines in their districts best suited for news/media literacy integration. They then work with NLP to create a scalable implementation plan.

Check out the new District Fellowship program webpage! Here, you can explore more about how our fellows are affecting media literacy education at the district level.
We selected and met with the first fellowship cohort of 17 district leaders from five school districts in July, and since then each district has developed a working team of up to 10 people from within their districts. They have been determining which grade levels and discipline areas they want to target for their news literacy instruction implementation plan.
To date, we have held three all-cohort convenings and each district has met one-on-one with NLP staff (all meetings to date have been virtual). In August, the cohort met with CEO Chuck Salter and Peter Adams, our senior vice president of research and design, to learn more about NLP’s vision and mission and the design of NLP’s news literacy instruction resources.
The next all-cohort meeting was held in October, and NLP staff conducted a training on best practices for communicating within their districts and communities about the importance of news literacy instruction.

Ambassador Updates

The News Literacy Ambassador Program supports local community organizing efforts to fight misinformation and pursue a mutual objective of creating a more news-literate generation of news consumers. Connect with an ambassador near you for events, presentations and to discuss the unique needs of educators in your school district or region.

Six new ambassadors were added to the program, expanding it to a total of 16 news literacy ambassadors around the country! New ambassadors include:Juan Armijo (NM) Grade 9-12 – Civics, Govt, History, Social Studies
Jocelyn Burlew (OH) Grade 6-8 – History, Digital/Media Literacy
Lesli Morris (UT) Grade 9-12 – English/ELA
Sean Scanlon (IL) Grade 9-12 – Administrator, Social Studies
David Doerr (TX) Grade 9-12 – Journalism / Photojournalism, Digital Media, Graphic Design, Newspaper Production
Juan Alvarado (TX) Grade 9-12 – English/ELA.

Read more about the six new ambassadors here.

TX ambassador David Doerr presented his first news literacy event in October at The Texas Association of Journalism Educators Fall Conference in San Antonio, Texas.
PA Ambassador Deborah Domingues-Murphy hosted a table at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit Social Studies Conference in October.
NLP’s news literacy ambassador and librarian media specialist K.C. Boyd was honored at the School Library Journal (SLJ) Leadership Summit as the school librarian of the year in November.

You can now find out more about PitchIt!, NLP’s student essay contest series, on our new landing page! Educators can use this resource for contest details, updates on contests cities, winners, insights from other educators, and more.
- The PitchIt! Miami student essay contest is open and will be live until May 12, 2023. The contest was recently launched district-wide by Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

We are now hosting NewsLitNation Happy Hour engagement events at various conferences throughout the year to connect ambassadors with NLP staff in-person, and to recruit more educators to NewsLitNation.
- Happy Hour events have been hosted at the SLJ Leadership Summit, the National Council for the Social Studies Conference, and more, with over 100 educators engaged.

You can now join over 900 fellow educators on the NewsLitNation Facebook Group!

Texas Educator, Celaina Huckeba

Ohio ambassador Jocelyn Burlew

Partnership Spotlight

NLP’s Senior Manager of Educator Professional Learning Alexa Volland and Senior Manager of Education Partnerships (East Coast) Brittney Smith held a virtual professional development training for about 70 principals and assistant principals from Community School District 10 in the Bronx, New York, which serves 57 schools K-12.
NLP partnered with Senior Planet from AARP and the National Institute for Civil Discourse to help the public survive Thanksgiving with the webinar, Productive conversations without confrontation. This virtual event had over 500 attendees!
In December, NLP held a NewsLitCamp®, our professional learning event where teachers, librarians and other educators across all subjects connect directly with journalists and hone their ability to teach students how to sort fact from fiction. The event in Philadelphia was co-hosted with WHYY and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
NLP’s Senior Manager of Community Learning DeMario Phipps-Smith traveled to Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida for a full-day training for instructors at the Non-Commissioned Officers Academy.
DeMario is also cultivating NLP’s renewed relationship with Urban Rural Action.
We have new partnerships in the works! These developing relationships include Sacramento County Office of Education, Ohio Department of Education, Atlanta Public Schools, New Jersey Department of Education, Spencer School District (IA), Alabama Department of Education, Cleveland, and Ohio Catholic Schools.

Media Literacy Education Landscape: Updates and Movement Wins

Through a partnership with Media Literacy Now, NLP receives monthly reports that provide a status update for all bills and laws related to media literacy, news literacy and digital citizenship in each state and at the federal level.

Current Landscape Snapshot

States mandating some form of media literacy education prior to graduation (Tier 1): Illinois, Texas, New Jersey

States currently providing funding for media literacy education (Tier 2): Colorado, New Mexico, Hawaii, California, Pennsylvania, Utah, Iowa, Florida, Ohio, Washington, Connecticut, and Michigan

Other states with statutes encouraging media literacy: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Washington

Movement wins

New Jersey is now a Tier 1 focus among our priority educator engagement states!

This means that New Jersey schools will mandate some form of media literacy education prior to graduation.

New Jersey moved up in our ranks in late November when Governor Phil Murphy signed bill S588, making it the first state in the U.S. to mandate media literacy curriculums from kindergarten through grade 12.

“This bill ensures that 1.3 million public school students in New Jersey will be better prepared for life beyond school with key skills that help them with lifelong learning, civic participation, and work skills,” said Olga Polites, leader, New Jersey Chapter of Media Literacy Now and NLP partner.

Ebonee Rice, NLP’s senior vice president of educator engagement, applauded the development. “It is so important that students are equipped to confidently navigate today’s information landscape, and this is a great first step.”

June – August 2022

Each quarter, through these updates, we’ll keep you in tune with the work our network of educators is doing and how that work is shifting the media literacy education landscape across the U.S. to create a future founded on facts.

Our community of invested supporters makes NLP ’s work both inside and outside of the classroom possible. And our stakeholders’ commitment and interest allow us to continue to impact the emerging media literacy movement and fuel an achievable national initiative that equips people of all backgrounds for active civic life

Movement Builders in the Field

NLP’s NewsLitNation News Literacy Ambassadors and district partners defend democracy and promote news literacy in their classrooms and at the school district level.