Hoodwinked, Bamboozled, Hornswoggled, Snookered. Whatever you call it, its coming to SK.

If you have not read the most recent bid for services solicited by the South Kingstown School Committee to be presented at the 3/10 school committee meeting, be sure to check it out. You, the taxpayer, are about to pay $35,000 for a marketing campaign on behalf of the school committee run by a company that primarily has carried out these services for educators, education unions, school committees, and town council.

Not for taxpayers.

Here is a partial list of their customers:

• American Association of School Administrators (AASA)
• Barrington (RI) Public Schools
• Boston Globe News in Education
• Boston Latin School Association
• Boston Public Schools
• Cambridge (MA) Public Schools
• Connecticut Association of Boards of Education
• Council of the Great City Schools
• Delaware Department of Education
• Duval County (FL) Public Schools
• East Providence (RI) Public Schools
• Fall River (MA) Public Schools
• Ferguson-Florissant (MO) School District
• Franklin (MA) Public Schools
• Harvard University Graduate School of Design
• Mass Insight Education & Research
• Massachusetts Association of School Committees
• Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents
• Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
• Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association
• Massachusetts School Administrators’ Association
• National Academy Foundation
• National Superintendents Academy
• New Bedford (MA) Public Schools
• Newton (MA) Public Schools
• Orange County (VA) Public Schools
• Portland (OR) Public Schools
• Seattle Public Schools
• Sharon (MA) Public Schools
• Syracuse (NY) City School District
• T eacher Collaborative
• U.S. Department of Education

Do you see taxpayer on that list anywhere? No? I do not either.

The bid for this marketing campaign meant to convince you and I to open our pocketbooks further to the tune of $35,000 is to convince (coerce) you and I, the payer source, to approve an $85 million dollar bond that is to be spent . . . for an undesignated, not yet approved, plan to renovate the school in the worst condition in the district to house our high school children. And to do minor, smaller renovations to our elementary schools that are underutilized as it is.

Does the school committee believe that an expensive marketing campaign is needed because we, the payer source for this project and bond, are incapable of understanding the truth? Is it to bend the truth?

You decide based on the good and the bad how you want to spend your money. Don’t fall for a polished, professional, marketing campaign from a marketing company out of Boston, Massachusetts. Demand that our town officials know enough about their proposals to answer your questions, both good and bad, and then let you – the taxpayer – decide.

Here is a link to the proposal:

And here is a link to tonights agenda:

http://go.boarddocs.com/ri/soki/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=BMFCRD324C2A

And here is a link to the meeting if you wish to watch it live tonight:

http://www.clerkbase.com/RI_SouthKingstown_Live_SchoolCommittee.html