The Kohl's School Contest

Liza Elcayam was my daughter's wonderful teacher in kindergarten, second and fourth grade.

After years of working online, it seemed like just another attempt to gain cheap publicity on the backs of moms who use social media. The money is significant... unfortunately, there are thousands of schools in this country who are hurting for funds. How do you pick the 20 most worthy?  Certainly not through a popularity contest.

Then I received an email from the PTA President of Megan's old elementary school.

Out of thousands of eligible public and private schools throughout the country -- somehow -- Darby Avenue Elementary had garnered enough votes to make it into the Top 100. And it was the only LAUSD school to make that list (just one out of nearly 800 in the District).

It had a shot.

So I went to the Kohl's Cares Facebook page and cast five votes for Darby Avenue Elementary. I liked the fact that you get 20 votes to allocate any way that you like to as many schools -- but are limited to five per school. So I was able to vote for Megan's former middle school and current high school, as well.

Then I checked the rankings. At the time, Darby Avenue Elementary was number 80 with about 5,000 votes. The Top 20 schools were almost all private parochial schools on the East Coast, with 50,000 votes a piece. I think there was one public school in the entire list.

Obviously, there are folks at these private schools who have been engaging in some sophisticated social media campaigns to garner that volume of votes.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. After all, that's how Darby's PTA managed to get 5,000 of its own votes out of a school population of about 300 students. And it's exactly what I did by tweeting news of the campaign to my 4,500 followers... and writing this post here.

Since then, Darby's stock has gone up on the Kohl's leaderboard: At this writing, they're ranked #52 with 9,402 votes. But the top vote getters are in the astronomical range: The number one school has nearly 83,000 votes. Eighteen of the top 20 are private parochial schools -- and now, there are some on the West Coast, including one I've never heard of that's right here in my community. There are only two public schools in the entire Top 20.

I would love to see a report on how those schools campaigned for those votes. That will probably come when the competition ends (after September 2). In the meantime, I was pleased to see that Darby Elementary was getting some media assistance of its own today, by staging a rally that included a visit from Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. And it was covered by all of the local news stations, including Fox, which set up cameras at the school at 4:30 AM this morning.

My fingers are crossed that in this huge metropolitan region of 24 million people, some will be motivated to get onto Facebook and vote for this little elementary school in Northridge. As Villaraigosa pointed out, all they need is for 10,000 of those people to cast five votes and they'll hit 50,000. (OK - so now they will need 20,000 people to do that... but that's still a tiny fraction of the people who will see the news coverage.)

At the same time, I see the irony in going all out to support a school that's already doing better than most in our troubled school district. Darby has some really good teachers and an energetic PTA. They don't have as many English learners and low income families as other schools in the district. Their API scores are high. At first glance, this is a school that doesn't need help.

Unfortunately, there isn't a public school in the district that doesn't need financial help. Every year, LAUSD squeezes the budget belt tighter. Every year, our schools lose teachers and support personnel. Five years ago (when my daughter attended Darby), there were classroom aides and janitorial services. Now, I'm told that parents are being asked to donate the most basic supplies... like toilet paper.

Half a million dollars could bring back instruction in the arts... music... science... a school nurse...

I keep hearing on the news that while money is tight and unemployment is high and banks are not lending... at the same time, corporations are sitting on big piles of cash. Kohl's is spending $10 million on a social media campaign that is getting everyone with a child in school to talk about them, engendering good will in the community and ultimately, garnering them new customers. It sounds like a pretty good return on investment.

What if more major corporations followed suit? I'm not talking about more popularity contests -- but what if Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, Federated, Kroeger, McDonald's, et al each threw some real money at our nation's schools?

I can dream, can't I?

Comments

[magpie]

I so hate these popularity contests. Loathe and despise even.

I wrote about Chase, if you're at all interested. http://www.magpiemusing.com/2010/08/cranky-about-chase-again.html

[Donna]

Thanks for the link to your Chase post.

I hate it too - which is why I initially ignored the request from the school (sorry, Darby friends). But I did change my mind when I saw what the school community had managed in getting into the top 100.

They are now at #25. Yes, they were helped by local publicity - but so were many of the other schools. Their budget for 2010-11 is only $20K. They're not only asking parents to donate school supplies - they can't even afford to change the toilet paper in the lavatories without parent donations.

I know this is just one little school out of 800 in the troubled LA Unified District. I wish corporations like Kohl's and Chase would just donate money to needy schools and community agencies. The grant process seems so much more fair. I understand that they get more publicity bang for their buck this way, but it's annoying and it's sad when you realize some of the winners got there by gaming the system.

In the meantime, if my tweets and Facebook posts can help this one little school, I'm going to continue doing so.

[Elena Duran]

Dear Mrs. Mills,

Hello. My name is Elena Duran. I am the creator of a blog called CARES (creating, awareness, regarding, endangered, schools).

I noticed that Darby is one of two public schools in the top 20. I am hoping you might consider helping other public schools make the final cut. I have never blogged before the Kohl's contest, but I felt like I had to do something in order to assist tuition free schools in desperate need of funding, especially when I saw that private school were dominating the top 40 spots. Though I have put a lot into my efforts, my impact has been small. Since you have such a massive following and are a compassionate woman, I wanted to see if you would consider doing two things.
1.Take a moment to visit my blog at www.cares2010.blogspot.com. This will help you understand more about the mission of CARES.
2. Then continue on to http://bit.ly/cares2010 and see if there are any school in our network that you might consider supporting.

I know I am a stranger to you, so I'd like to share my deepest gratitude in even considering my request. I would feel much better about this contest if a few public school in great need receive some of the funding from Kohl's.

Thank You,

Elena Duran
[email protected]

[Donna]

Reading about the tornado stricken schools and the San Jose school that was burned down by arsonists is heartbreaking – as is the condition of so many of our public schools.

That is why – like you – at first, I did not pay much attention to the Kohl’s Contest. I hate seeing so many private schools (which are likely small and attract families who are willing to pay tuition) in the top spots in this competition. I think the old-fashioned grant process is a more fair method for distributing much-needed funds, especially with an educational system in shambles.

I wish I could help you more than I actually can. I am mostly offline today, spending time with my daughter and prepping for the holiday weekend.

I also wish I had the “massive following” you think I have. The truth is, my blog ratings are pretty small. My post likely had very little to do with the number of votes Darby has received. The current PTA, teachers and students should get credit for that. They quietly raised awareness in the community and had amassed about 7,000 votes as of last week, which put them in the top 100. (I have been tweeting to my 4500 followers and it’s received retweets and about 400 clicks – but that still doesn’t translate into the 100,000+ votes the school has received now.)

Last Friday, they held a rally at the school and some media-savvy parents alerted the Mayor’s office and the news media. So we had the Mayor of Los Angeles on all the local news stations, commending little Darby for being the only LAUSD school to be in contention for these funds. The Mayor’s office has been tweeting the contest each day, as has some local sites. I think the success of the social media campaign is due to a concentrated, collective effort of people who are local.

Even if I dropped everything I am doing and wrote about the other schools, my little post would not be able to help them amass the number of votes need to make a dent in the competition (which ends tomorrow). But the search for funds for these schools should not end – and there must be other corporations with cash to donate who just need to find a good cause. And I would be happy to be part of a new social media collective to help raise awareness of them.