Today I went to a Santa Rosa City School Board meeting. The topic of discussion was the introduction of corporate advertising and sponsorship in the Santa Rosa’s City School district. They voted yes to move forward with this proposal. The idea is to implement commercially provided material and curriculum into program courses. This money will not be used to keep peoples jobs and it will not be used to help pre-existing programs.  This is a tool for a corporation to pay to put their own spin into our public school curriculum and as well as advertise through the naming of  buildings; school teams, educational programs, and signs that will be posted around campuses. Read the CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP AND FACILITY NAMING RIGHTS POLICY HERE. 

 I have been an educator in Sonoma County for 6 years and I am horrified how the board ruled today. Amazingly I was the only member of the public to speak out in opposition to this proposal. Is this what public education has come to?  Already children are inundated with advertisements wherever they go and now we have it in our schools! I hope that our future generations have the strength to resist corporate control as they get older but I find that hard to believe when these corporations are the one’s implementing lessons in our schools. What can we do to stop this vicious cycle? 

I thought I had gotten what I said on tape but sadly it did not record for some reason, so I will transcribe my comment to the board and hopefully get a hold of a video to post later. It’s a good thing I typed what I was going to say before hand!

“These are hard times.

Troubling economic woes have had a major impact on our system as a whole.

The school system is not immune from these woes; indeed, they are often on the front lines.

 

And so the concept of selling advertising space has been proposed to the School Board.

But has the Board exhausted all other options?

The stated goal of this proposal is to “have additional funds to enrich the students curriculum” yet, “not to rely on these funds.”

So, is it really necessary to have signs, programs, outreach materials, buildings and more attention taken from the schools mission of a quality education?

A quality education requires a safe, healthy and constructive environment for everyone. One that focuses on all the student’s needs as opposed to one that pushes an outside agenda- being in this case advertising.

As we know a business, or corporation’s main objective is to succeed financially.

Is it possible that allowing corporations advertising space in our children’s lives while they are younger is simply a business plan, and not an educational tool?

 

Will it be the school that truly benefits, or corporations who will have more of a market?

You are talking about possibly integrating commercially provided material and curriculum into program courses.

The language in the proposal does not mention any guidelines for differentiating between kindergarten advertising rights and high schools advertising rights.

Will a child that is 6 years old see the same signs as those that are 16?

Who will be responsible if there is a civil law suite or a major breach of contract by a corporation requiring a David vs. Goliath legal battle between the District and a large corporate entity?

I think this should be more carefully scrutinized.

In the Proposal the Career Technical Education programs are listed as the main, but not only recipients of funds collected from advertising space.

Looking at the CTE’s website we find a list of the Advisory Group. A few names and titles from the list of advisors I think are important;

 

Mr. Gerald Blackburn
Boeing Space Systems

 

Ms. Barbara Ross,
Manager, Strategic Relations
Apple Computer

 

Mr. Rick Lawrance,
President and CEO
California Lodging Industry Association

 

Ms. Kathleen Milnes,
President & CEO
Entertainment Economy Institute

 

Ms. Kathleen Valentine,
Director Patient Care Services
Kaiser Permanente

These concerns are a mere scratch on the surface for this proposal. Options Exist:

The combined income of 29 principals for 29 schools could cut by a third for 2 years.

-The savings could net some 1 million dollars for additional spending.

-We could dedicate buildings and “acknowledgement” space to those who were willing to take payment cuts.

-The consolidation of some small school districts of Sonoma County into Santa Rosa’s district has been brought up before in this room. Sonoma County has over 35 school districts which means 35 superintendent’s are making over 150,000 a year.

-Consolidating some districts could bring more income to Santa Rosa city schools and improve overall efficiency, especially in these hard times.

-Do we want to risk the future of our children’s education for some advertising bucks and naming rights?

The future of our children is the future of this country.”

The Board members were responsive to what I had said but still voted to pass it. There was only one nay on the vote. 

-Tasha

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 4:02 AM and is filed under Corporate Control, Local Events, NorCal News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.