Since 1979, ESD 112 has been home to The Vancouver Educational Television Consortium (TV ETC), a nonprofit organization consisting of seven Clark County school districts. The three principal districts, Vancouver Public Schools, Evergreen Public Schools, and Battle Ground School District, partner with ESD 112 staff to broadcast student and staff produced television programming that airs on Comcast channels 27, 28/328, and 29. In turn, TV ETC’s status as Clark County’s educational access provider serves to strengthen the video production programs of the principle school districts.

As an educational access provider, TV ETC’s full consortium members are eligible to apply for Public, Educational, Governmental (PEG) Access grant funding for equipment and infrastructure that aids in the production of local cable programming. The equipment and infrastructure the grant provides helps school districts strengthen their student video programs and broaden their classroom and extracurricular offerings. This funding gives students access to industry standard equipment, which they use in collaboration with district teachers and staff to create hundreds of hours of original programming each school year.

In 2023, Evergreen Public Schools is utilizing grant funds to create an in-house broadcast facility at McKenzie Stadium that will aid students and staff in the live broadcasting of high school sporting events including football, soccer, and track and field, as well as the school district’s graduation ceremonies.

Vancouver Public Schools is building out the individual video production programs at their high schools so that they can more effectively partner with District video production staff, significantly increasing the number and frequency of live events they will be able to cover in future school years. The pilot program for this model at Columbia River High School, CR Sports, has been successful for several seasons.

Battle Ground School District utilized this year’s grant funding to purchase equipment that will strengthen the quality and boost the frequency of their live sports programming, as well as aid in their coverage of graduations and school performing arts events.

“It’s a privilege to help the schools develop such robust and award-winning video programs,” says Xander Hayes, TV ETC Coordinator. “Having access to industry standard equipment and gaining experience producing content at a young age was a huge part of my educational development. It’s amazing to see what students have access to now, the content they’re able to produce is really impressive. And to help schools pass on those kind of learning opportunities to future tv producers and filmmakers… it’s just awesome, and I feel really great about the content that comes out of this partnership.”