Rainier Beach High School Flyer

I got a promotional flyer from Rainier Beach High School. It came on an email from the Rainier Beach family support worker/marketing coordinator Virginia Owens.



Here is the flyer:
While I support the efforts of Rainier Beach High School to notify families about their programs and to promote them. I support the assignment of "marketing coordinator" duties to someone at Rainier Beach (though I think Director DeBell would be uncomfortable with it).

That said, I'm not crazy about this flyer (see comments).

The flyer was attached to an email sent on February 6 (the day before the first school tour). Owens, in the sig file of her email, gives her personal email address rather than her seattleschools.org email address and it promotes a charity that she started. That's not appropriate.

The email and the flyer went to every middle school and K-8 south of the Ship Canal - except TOPS and Pathfinder. I don't know why those schools were left off the route list.

I am charmed by the sense of urgency created by the flyer when it says: "Register your child at Rainier Beach High School NOW while there is still room!" Of course, you can't register for any school yet. Open Enrollment hasn't started. And, of course, there is plenty of room at Rainier Beach High School.

Comments

Charlie Mas said…
Regarding the flyer -

Rainier Beach High School is 56% Black, but I had a hard time finding black faces in these photos. Black faces just don't show up in ads, not even for RBHS.

Is that logo, with the arm, helmet, and battle axe, the Rainier Beach logo? It's not the one that I've seen or the one on the Rainier Beach High School web page.

The copy about the IB program is a tangle:
"The attributes and descriptors of the IB's learner profile define the type of expertise Rainier Beach High School graduates will acquire:" That's a real head-scratcher and hardly an advertisement for a program to teach children to communicate clearly. It is followed by a list that lack parallelism.

Do the CTE programs also turn students into these kind of people or is it just IB? Does IB instill the characteristics on the left and CTE instills the characteristics on the right?

The email is poorly written as well and seems to imply that only IB students graduate with a love of learning.

I have to wonder also if any general fund money is used to pay Ms Owens for her work as marketing coordinator.
2/16/13, 11:23 AM
Nick Esparza said…
Charlie Mas I don't understand Your Hatred for the Students and Staff of Rainier Beach High School ?
2/16/13, 12:26 PM
former dragon said…
Nick Esparza I don't understand Your Conclusion that Charlie Hates RBHS based on his Distaste for a Flyer.
2/16/13, 1:10 PM
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
2/18/13, 12:19 AM
Anonymous said…
Nick: I am a profession graphic design/communications specialist and in my educated opinion this flyer is just terrible.

I agree with Charlie's assessment and add:

The placement of the text has no flow whatsoever; you don't know where to look first, or what's related to what.

The design elements (logo, triangle, photos, lists) are all competing for attention.

The photos look "canned." They were obviously NOT taken at RBHS.

Perhaps, some form of communication to potential students is better than none, but as a parent with a child in the RBHS service area, I can only say that a flyer done so poorly would not install confidence.

SolvayGirl
2/18/13, 10:53 AM
Charlie Mas said…
Well, well, well. What do you know?

Here is the source of the photo for culinary arts, Moody High School in Corpus Christi, Texas.


2/20/13, 6:15 PM
Charlie Mas said…
The computer science photo is from Gardena High School in Gardena, CA.

Are there any copyright issues with the use of these images?
2/20/13, 6:17 PM
Charlie Mas said…
Both of the images I found are copyrighted.

Here is the School Board policy on Copyright Acquisition and Compliance, 2025.

It reads:
"The Seattle School Board recognizes that federal law makes it illegal to reproduce or duplicate copyrighted works or materials without authorization of the holder of the copyright, except for certain exempt purposes. Copyrighted works shall only be used to the extent authorized by law and Board policy."

The superintendent's procedure says:
"A. Materials on the Internet should be used with caution since they may be copyrighted.
B. Proper attribution (author, title, publisher, place and date of publication) should always be given."
2/20/13, 6:38 PM
Unknown said…
We are offering cheap high quality website development and provide social media integration for your website.Get your own quality website designing only @ US$150.we provide Website Designing,Website Development,Graphic Designing,Freelance Graphic Designer,Freelancer Website Designer,ECommerece website Designer,Shopping Cart Template Design,Wordpress,Brochure Design,Flyers Design,Visiting Card Design,Bussiness Crad Design,Data Entry Jobs,Logo Design,Template Design with HTML CSS JavaScript,PSD to HTML,Facebook Application,Facebook Fanpage,Twitter API,Facebook API.
3/15/14, 1:01 AM
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