Scholastic tackles COVID and racism
When the pandemic shut down U.S. schools nationwide in March, Scholastic Corp. immediately offered a free online learning hub for millions of families with kids. Two months later, civil unrest pushed the company to cover it and examine its own titles.
Tackling turmoil and cultural change is nothing new for the 100-year-old company, now the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s literature and education materials with annual sales of $1.65 billion. The company, founded as a single classroom magazine by Maurice R. Robinson, has covered such topics as class warfare during the Depression era, civil rights riots in the 1960s and recent transgender issues in a way that it says encourages critical thinking and discussion.
During a recent interview with The AP, 83-year-old Richard Robinson, CEO and son of the late founder, talks about a wide range of issues from COVID’s impact on its business to tackling the issue of racial inequality.
How has COVID-19 affected Scholastic’s business?
Like other companies, responding to COVID-19 has been extremely challenging. The widespread school closings impacted nearly every Scholastic division, especially our Book Fairs group, which saw fair cancellations this spring. In order to maintain the financial health of the company, we have had to make some difficult decisions including a combination of furloughs and shortened work weeks and in some cases, job elimination.
Tell me more about how you pivoted to online in March.
When schools closed on March 13, we created something called Scholastic Learn at Home, a digital learning device, which we delivered free to families with kids at home. That was an incredible success. Right now, it is running 80 million page views for the period from March 15 to the present, with about 30 million visitors. It’s a combination of videos, information and learning journeys. It suggests that there is a considerable market for that and that is a significant way to reach kids for learning that is open for us to develop further.
What are your plans to increase titles by authors of color?
We introduced (in January) something called “Rising Voices,” which is for first grade through grade 5 and are stories by and about and for Latino and African American boys. It’s getting great response from the schools. But there is so much need for these stories throughout the United States. In the fall, we’ll be continuing to focus on these issues in our magazines and also through increased amount of publishing for diverse kids through our trade publishing operation.
How do you educate without being one-sided given such a politically polarized environment?
We are dealing with issues like global warming, racial inequality in a way that doesn’t polarize the issue but gives points of views on both sides and is a balanced neutral position but not in a sense of being bland. Interviewed by Anne D’Innocenzio. Edited for clarity and length.