Since my oldest child started going to elementary school, I’ve been a little perturbed about what has come home in her backpack.
Fliers. The endless amount of fliers. (The trees! The poor trees!)
My second grader has witnessed more than her fair share of backpack spam. We have seen a stream of classes and sports teams dangling in front of her, sports programs to consider, tickets to purchase for shows and other stuff.
I’m not talking about activities or fundraisers (Scholastic book forms included) that directly relate to the school. I’m talking about …. all the other stuff. Don’t get me wrong; many of the fliers are fairly innocuous and serve a benefit. They often feature fun community events, a lot of them free or high-value. Sometimes, they have included events we didn’t know about here at chambanamoms.com, and were promptly put on our calendar.
But too often, the fliers would be (in my opinion) inappropriate: for-profit tutoring services, after-school programs that cost a pretty penny, coupons to local businesses, other events in town that have beyond a nominal fee.
I don’t understand when it became OK for the schools to offer up my child’s backpack to marketers. And in a district where more than a sizable number of children receive free or reduced-cost lunch, it’s a little nutty.
My other concern about the backpack spam is how much staff time is being devoted to flier distribution. Multiply 11 elementary schools times about 300 kids — that’s a lot of fliers being put into backpacks. Time that adds up. And, it appears, there is no way to opt out — because trying to figure out the kids who aren’t supposed to get the fliers would take even longer.
My distaste for the backpack spam reached a fever pitch in late fall. We received a flier about a contest related to the recent monster truck show at the building formerly known as the Assembly Hall. The contest implored students to buy tickets, and the Champaign elementary school whose students bought the most tickets would receive a “free” assembly.
Wow. Are you kidding me? Why would a school be imploring its students to buy tickets (that were not inexpensive), urging false competitions against other schools, for the right to receive an assembly that was more commercial than educational?
That was the tipping point, and I immediately reached out to the district for an explanation of the entire process. I spoke to Ken Kleber, director of Human Resources, the department within Champaign School District Unit 4 that is responsible for flier approval.
He explained that the intent of allowing flyers in backpacks is “to be a good community partner.”
Kleber confirmed that the monster truck show flier was approved by his office.
“The Monster Truck flier was actually approved by the District for distribution over at least the last two years. I am unsure as to why (I believe they have a history of being able to do so),” he said.
He also informed me that the District recently revamped its distribution policy. Businesses are not allowed to distribute information, “unless the purpose is to further a school activity such as graduation, class pictures, or class rings.” And organizations wishing to distribute information must provide documented non-profit 501(c)(3) status.
“The policy basically says the district has the discretion to do whatever. Ultimately it will be my call, and upon receiving your feedback and our review, I can tell you that next year this flyer won’t be approved.”
I still keep an eye on what is coming home, and recently, it seems the backpack spam of all flavors has slowed. I can’t tell if it is just seasonal, or related to a more stringent enforcement of the policy, but there is definitely much less marketing happening via my child’s backpack.
Bonus: we might save a few trees in the process.
What do you think? Join the discussion in the comments!
Laura Weisskopf Bleill is the Mom-in-Chief of chambanamoms.com. You can reach her at laura@chambanamoms.com or on Twitter at @chambanalaura or @chambanamoms.