Apparently there's money to be made in distributing student report cards.
A Colorado school district has sold advertising space on the report cards its 91 elementary schools will be handing out over the next three years, which will raise $90,000 for Jefferson County Public Schools.
Each report card sent to homes in Golden, Colo., will include an ad for Collegeinvest, a U.S.-based university tuition investment program. The ad campaign is in response to a $40 million budget cut that hit the district last year.
But despite its own financial constraints, don't expect School District 57 to follow the revenue-generating Colorado example any time soon. To do so would require a change to the donations and sponsorship document that outlines school policy.
"We're guided by Policy 1323 and that [advertising] would not fit with the intent of the policy," said School District 57 superintendent Brian Pepper. "There are number of regulations and administrative procedures and they haven't been interpreted in a manner that would see that occur. That would involve a lot of discussion and it would be a fairly major change to the policy direction and the practice in the district."
Pepper said the policy on advertising insulates the school district from the possibility of taking on a sponsor that might be connected, directly or indirectly, with a company that promotes the sale of alcohol or tobacco, or products deemed harmful to the health and/or morals of young people.
"We are approached on a regular basis with many different opportunities that are relevant to the community context and are certainly good and worthy causes," said Pepper. "You have to be very careful in the kinds of sponsorship you permit. It's something we've always been very sensitive about."
Jefferson County, which has 86,000 students, also sells advertising on its school buses to a Colorado bank. Without a policy change, that won't happen in School District 57, which does not own its buses and contracts that service out to Diversified Transportation.
"There's no mechanism through policy for me do that," Pepper said.
Pepper said area schools will continue to accept donations, public or private, of money, goods or services and will encourage sponsors to support school programs, as long as district policy is followed.
Last year, School District 57 accepted $317,665 in donor funds that paid for student awards. Since 2007, the annual donor proceeds for scholarships and bursaries has never totaled less than $300,000, reaching a peak of $359,635 in 2008.
Any donation that exceeds $20,000 in value from a single source requires mutual approval in the form of a contract between the school board and the donor. Proposals that are deemed unique will be referred to the board for consideration. A sponsorship or donation that involves more than one school, if a consensus on distribution can't be achieved, will be referred to the school superintendent. The superintendent also has the right to require terms of a sponsorship agreement revised or terminated.
Despite the current teachers job action and a Labour Relations Board ruling that found preparation and distribution of report cards is not an essential service to be provided by teachers, Pepper said student progress reports will be sent home by Dec. 9.
The reports might not be complete, Pepper said, but they will at least include the name of the student's teacher, the course breakdown, attendance, reports or grades for classes taught by administrators, and contact information for parents wanting to have further contact with teachers.
