Back to school is a little pricey
This is the first week of the new school year for your Peabody Gazette-Bulletin staff. With this issue of the newspaper students in the fourth and fifth grades at Peabody-Burns Elementary school and two sections of current events students at the Peabody-Burns High School each will get a copy of the paper every week.
District teachers use the newspapers to work on English, history, science, and math projects. I hope the paper also is a tool to familiarize students with issues that are important to their hometowns. I hope they learn about blue-green algae, school spirit, historic preservation, and the value of supporting their local communities. I hope they ask questions about city ordinances, flood plains, agricultural tourism, and weather. I hope they pick apart my opinion column and discuss whether I am right or wrong. And I hope they get a BIG kick out of seeing themselves in Janet Post's photographs.
For six years we have provided newspapers to Peabody-Burns students. We started with the fifth graders, then added a high school current events class. This year two additional classes have asked to receive the paper so the number will expand and we will serve four classes — 77 students. Seventy-seven papers a week for 40 weeks at $1 a paper is $3,080. And that is just for this school year. The past school year we served 56 students for a total of $2,240. I have no idea what the totals for the past six years add up to, but I bet it is a chunk of change.
I'd be interested in knowing how many other local businesses give $2,000 or $3,000 a year to students in our school district.
I mention this only because of some recent rumblings and whining about the paper "only wanting to sell ads, they don't want to promote our (take your pick, here) new products/service or soup supper, fund-raiser, whatever
So when you complain that I haven't featured your business, benefit, or drawing on the front page of the paper and you are all indignant and huffy, remember this rule: if you make money, we make money. It is as simple as that.
Somewhere in this mix, the people who own the newspaper are supposed to be making a profit and socking away a little income from this venture. The financial gain for funding a newspaper in Peabody is just a smidgen above nothing. But I want you all to know something. They have never said, "Egad, Susan, quit giving away our papers to those school kids every week!" Never. They haven't even questioned it. They've just done it because I told them the teachers want the papers.
As school begins I am trying to recruit some sponsors for this service. We don't plan to quit providing newspapers to our children. That goes against everything our staff is trying to do by publishing one in the first place. We want to encourage our students to develop a life-long interest in reading. We hope that reading about their communities, their school, their county, and their fellow students will expand their reading enjoyment.
But it is a little awkward to ask Hoch Publishing to keep donating a product with that dollar amount attached to it. I expect they will do it, but it is hard to ask. So if you would be interested in sponsoring newspapers for a classroom let me know.
— SUSAN MARSHALL
