by Brian Allen of TODAY Newspapers

"There is no quid pro quo," said Superintendent Larry Lewis. “If we mess up, we want you to report our mess up."

After its typical heated debate, the Lancaster Independent School District Board of Trustees approved the purchase of between 4,500-5,000 subscriptions to the Lancaster Today newspaper during its Nov. 5 meeting.

Financing for the partnership comes from reallocation of the district's communication funds and federal funds mandated for public relations use.

The subscriptions are expected to cost the district around $90,000, $10,000 of which will return to the district as scholarship funds from the paper.

The prorated cost for the current fiscal year is $62,500 (a non-profit rate of $18 per subscription). The newspapers delivered weekly to the homes of every parent with children in the district will replace communications including a newsletter sent six times a year.

Lancaster resident Thomas Allen spoke out against the expenditure in the citizen communication portion of the meeting. Allen said the board is only allowed to make drastic changes to the budget for unforeseen circumstances.

“If the proposed expenditure was discussed during the budget process, it was both foreseen and deemed unnecessary,” he said.

Before the vote, LISD Community Relations Director Teri Wilson discussed the district's current communications plan and her belief that it wasn't working effectively.

Wilson said LISD utilizes the newsletter, special mailings and flyers distributed in student backpacks to limited success.

“Some of you know not everything put in the backpack gets out of the backpack and into parents' hands,” she said.

She expressed excitement about the educational opportunities both by students reading newspapers at home and in the classroom and getting hands-on experience through internships with the local paper.

Wilson noted that purchasing newspapers as an educational resource is not unprecedented. LISD buys The Dallas Morning News as part of the Newspapers in Education Program and subscribes to Weekly Reader for students in pre-K through fifth grade.

Superintendent Larry Lewis interjected to reiterate that the district doesn't get free papers from any source. After Wilson spoke, Lewis closed the presentation to clear up some of the misconceptions he had heard about the partnership.

“There is no quid pro quo,” he said. “If we mess up, we want you to report our mess up. But we also want you to report, as we have asked other media outlets to report, all the wonderful things our students do.”

Lewis said the board would likely look back at this partnership in a year and call it “the best $90,000 we've ever spent.”

Wilson said LISD was not selling exclusive coverage rights to Today Newspapers. “We are going to continue sending our press releases to everyone,” she said. “We're not going to stop with Lancaster Today.”

Wilson also noted that $20,000 of the cost of subscriptions would come from federal funds that must be spent on publicizing the school district.

The remaining year's subscription balance comes from the district's communication budget, therefore, subscriptions are not purchased with monies being taken out of the classroom.

Trustee Russ Johnson said he didn't see a downside to the partnership.

“This is a win-win situation,” Johnson said. “I can't imagine anyone wanting to throw a dart at this for the potential benefit for the district.”

Trustee Carolyn Morris, however, one of Lewis' most outspoken critics, had a completely different take. She wanted to know if anyone had asked parents for their input and suggested the measure be sent to the voters.

Her colleague Marjorie King had questions about the paper's ability to objectively report on an entity that would be its biggest subscriber.

“It seems to me that if we buy 84 percent of the paper's circulation few people are going to believe they would put anything negative in there,” she said.

After much discussion the vote was 4-2 in favor of the partnership, with Morris and King against, and Marie Elliot abstaining.

Morris asked that the record reflect she voted against it for the reasons she had previously stated.

Lancaster Today Owner Kim Petty said the partnership will put city and school news in more people's hands, a fact she sees as a chance to build a more informed citizenry.

“We are aware of the concerns with this partnership and we hope readers give us a chance to negate those concerns,” Petty said. “We also hope people will respect the tremendous learning opportunity - for children and adults alike - LISD just gave this community.”

Student families can expect to begin receiving their Lancaster Today newspapers each Thursday in December.

• Staff
• Verified User
• Anonymous