Youth librarian in first cohort of Fred Rogers education advisory program
Fred Rogers Productions recently started an advisory program to get suggestions and ideas for its children’s programming from people involved in education, and a Butler Area Public Library librarian has been tapped to be part of the committee.
To that librarian, being involved in the program is like working for one of her heroes.
“When I was a kid, Fred was so much embodied kindness and goodness to me,” Tiffany Harkleroad, children’s librarian at the Butler Area Public Library, said of Fred Rogers. “It's really one of my aims... to embody that spirit and really live his truths.”
Fred Rogers Productions produces children’s shows, games and apps that encourage children’s curiosity, and make it fun for them to learn and grow, according to the company’s website. The company was founded by Mr. Rogers himself, who formed Family Communications Inc. in 1971 — the nonprofit company that would become Fred Rogers Productions in 2018.
After initially applying to be part of the Education Impact Advisory Program late last year, Harkleroad said she met with the other 14 members of the cohort this month, with another meeting scheduled for May. With this being the first advisory group the production company is working with, Harkleroad said she is looking forward to paving the way with the group while sharing her insights as a children’s librarian with the producers of the company’s shows.
“At each meeting, we will meet with the production staff of a specific show that the Fred Rogers Production company creates,” Harkleroad said, “and talk about the educational framework that the show is based on and ways that type of framework can bridge the gap between home, school, community and the types of tools that might be useful for those things.”
The Education Impact Advisory is comprised of education professionals and practitioners who will provide insights into early childhood learning contexts, offer feedback on content and co-create new educational engagement activities. The group will help create new educational resources and pilot new education-focused initiatives from Fred Rogers Productions, according to the company.
Mallory Mbalia, director of learning and education for Fred Rogers Productions, said the group was created as a way to get more voices involved with the company’s content, which is meant to extend beyond television. These advisers are people who are neighbors to children who may see Fred Rogers Productions programming, which helps build a relationship between children and who they see on TV.
“Who do parents and caregivers trust, but people in their neighborhood? We have to talk to them through the people they know and are familiar to them,” Mbalia said. “With this advisory, we can be in even more places that our neighbors are in.”
Fred Rogers Productions produces shows for PBS, a programming repertoire that currently includes “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” “Donkey Hodie,” “Alma’s Way,” “Odd Squad” and “Peg + Cat.” Harkleroad commented that they each have a unique way of being educational.
Harkleroad said the first meeting, scheduled to take place in early May, will see the advisory members speaking to the show producers about their goals for their shows.
Aside from her excitement of being involved in the process, Harkleroad said it’s a throwback to work on shows that are continuations of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” is an animated version of one of the characters from the old show, as is “Donkey Hodie.”
“All these pieces of my childhood continue to be delivered in new and inventive ways to children now, and I just love that,” Harkleroad said.
Harkleroad previously worked with WQED, when she was selected as a 2021 honoree of the PBS KIDS Early Learning Champions program. She said this was helpful in her application for the Fred Rogers advisory program, because she got an idea of how public educational programming is made behind the scenes.
“When I did that, was one of the things I got to do was create resources around new shows they created and pilot them here at the library,” Harkleroad said.
Mbalia called the members of the advisory group neighbors, and said each of their recruitments to the program was intentional, to bring as many perspectives as possible to the production company.
Among the members are teachers and principals, curriculum experts, early childhood development specialists, librarians and child care providers. Harkleroad said there is even a staff member from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in the group, a perspective that Mbalia said will provide unique insight into children and parents who have experienced medical needs or hospital stays.
“We knew there were different perspectives we needed,” Mbalia said.
The advisory group is scheduled to have regular meetings through July 2027, at which point, a second cohort of the group will be introduced. The second cohort will also get to meet with members of the first cohort before they take the reigns, Mbalia said.
But neighbors won’t have to wait that long to see their impact with Fred Rogers Productions. Mbalia said the members will get to pilot some of the company’s ideas that grow out of the collaboration between the advisory and the learning and education department, so they can get direct feedback from people and youths they serve in their own communities.
Harkleroad said she already has ideas that she hopes to bring to the advisory program, and she hopes to see the results of the group come back to people in Butler via the Butler Area Public Library. She said that after years of working with children at the library, bringing what she has learned to a TV production company was the best way to reach even more children — and further support the ones back home.
“Because children are always learning, pretty much every space that they're going to be in can be an educational space,” Harkleroad said. “The more we talk about that and the more we prepare those educators, I think the better those kids are going to end up.”
