Pondo Pod keeping the pace
From left: First grade teacher Peter Miley and Ponderosa Elementary School Principle Scott Ross in their recording space. The duo records a weekly podcast, the "Pondo Pod," turning "walls into windows," and bringing parental involvement to a new level.
ELLI GOLDMAN HILBERT/Press
POST FALLS — The weekly “Pondo Pod” podcast created at Ponderosa Elementary School is the brainchild of first grade teacher Peter Miley and principal Scott Ross. It’s proven to be the perfect way to engage with the community about what goes on behind school walls.
It’s all about transparency, Ross said Tuesday, during an interview with The Press.
Transparency that “turns walls into windows,” for parents and families, Miley said.
“I think in a lot of circumstances, school seems like the ‘other.’ You know, you sort of drop your kids off and then come back and hope they learned a little something,” Miley said. “We’re trying to overcome that barrier. I think a lot of schools are probably trying to overcome that barrier.”
Podcast topics range from the silly to the serious, and cover everything in between.
Next week, they’ll be interviewing a parent about a school event she’s involved in planning. Student council members are interviewed frequently. Student YouTuber Cooper Malmstadt shared his content creation prowess during an episode that aired Feb. 23. Other episodes discussed staff New Year’s resolutions and students' favorite playground activities.
Students are starting to ask to be involved, Ross said. The podcast kicked off in October of 2021, after Miley convinced Ross they needed to do it. Currently, they see about 100 downloads per week, and the numbers are growing.
Ross, who has been the principal for the past seven years, recalls that during his childhood when there were political or social issues happening, most of those conversations happened behind closed doors, out of reach of children’s ears, he said.
Students today are exposed to more because of the impact of social media and are hearing about political and social issues they may not fully understand, Ross said.
“We had noticed that a lot of students were repeating things that a second grader shouldn’t know about. Adult problems were becoming second, third and fourth grade problems, because they were being discussed more openly in the household,” Ross said. “I think in today’s world with parents, it’s different than when we were kids,”
This observation led to an episode called, “They are always watching,” Ross said.
“That was a really tough one to get through,” Ross said. “We wanted to make sure we weren’t coming across as blaming or offensive. It was more informational.”
Designed for students and their families, Miley said the “ethos (of the project) is actually much bigger than that.”
“In today’s world, transparency is becoming more and more key. Running a building or just running companies in general, whether it’s a private business or whatever, people want to know what’s going on and what their money goes into,” Ross said. “And you know, we’re state tax-funded. That was our original philosophy. The goal of the podcast is to really let parents see more behind the scenes of what’s going on. Whether that’s philosophies, or events, or interviewing students to see how they view things.”
Post-COVID, parents “were itching” to get involved again, Ross said. And the podcast has helped them do that.
The Pondo Pod can be found anywhere listeners access podcasts. Most episodes are between 10 and 30 minutes long. The Pondo Pod also has pages on Facebook and Instagram.