Scholastic Banned in WA
February 14th, 2008 by tsullivanFirst time we’ve ever seen this — Scholastic Book Clubs disallowed in this Washington (state) district.
There was one complaint about content of Book Club books, but the larger issue in this town seems to be having kids connected to selling anything. We’ve said it before — these issues need a more nuanced analysis than simply equating all selling or all for-profit efforts with doing harm to kids.
Whether schools could benefit from Scholastic having more competition is an open question, but — c’mon! — the 50-year tradition of school book clubs doing harm to kids??? These guys can’t be serious. Your thoughts?
February 15th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
This is unbelieveable that a school distrct would discontinue sucha a great resource for its teachers and students. As a PTO, we have kids selling items all the time in the name of PTO to help raise funds to purchase items for the schol and help pay for many things such as field trips, assemblies and much more. Without fudraisers such as Scholastic and many others, we as a PTO would not be able to do as much as we do. And as far as books doing harm, that’s why there are so many choices in an order form– so there is a book you do not approve of, then don’t order it– pick another book and you can’t touch some of Scholastic’s pricing–.99 cents per book and kids receive their books at school, which is another encouragement to read from teachers.
February 16th, 2008 at 8:22 am
I beleive it is a good idea to allow sales of affordable books in schools. There are certain books to which I also object.
What I read as the reason for ban was “School officials said that district policy prohibits them from promoting for-profit businesses”.
This seems to be consistent with the statement from their counsel, ” ‘If we allow Scholastic Book Clubs, there’s no reason we couldn’t allow any other commercial endeavor,’ Murdock, the legal counsel, said.”
I see how a legal counsel could interpret a written policy to create risk for the district if they were to allow the sale of Scholastic books in the district.
At some point, it’s time for the district to stand up and say, We’ll take the risk that we may have to come up with a process or policy to determine which we allow and which we don’t.
February 21st, 2008 at 5:10 pm
How can one person’s opinion potentially affect an entire district? Unfortunately it can when it’s printed as an article, NOT on the “opinion” page as it should be. (cheap shot Columbian!)
If they disallow the book club, then forget about the proceeds from candy, wrapping, cookies, schools that have stores and oh, let’s not forget pop machines and food at the sporting events.
C’mon! If you don’t like a book (car, shirt, movie..need I go on?) don’t buy it.