Oh my gosh, how can you live without a school directory? I look at my daily. Our school staff has always put it together--on 8.5 x 11 sheets with cardstock cover, no ads. It has name address phone number and if you include it, cell phone and e-mail. It's free (1 per family) and then we sell extras for $3. For divorced parents, we list the child twice, once with each parent because some parents have another child with another spouse. I MADE them start doing that this year because it was so confusing and I think it makes things so much clearer. OUr parents aren't given a choice as to whether or not they want to be listed although I've noticed maybe one person who says unlisted number.
Shelly
Our PTO does a directory, and we do sell advertising. Originally the ads were intended to cover the cost of printing, but the first year we brought in far more than that and actually had a big stink of a disagreement over what to do with the windfall. (Isn't it amazing how absolutely anything can turn into a problem?)
I think that at this point we have the info on disk and just update it yearly based on the release/info forms parents complete and return. We're a fairly small school, around 300 students K-5, and our turnover isn't enormous. This year's directory was printed on 8 1/2 x 11 paper and bound with those plastic thingys, the binding courtesy of a parent's company.
Our school hasn't had one since any of us involved can remember. It's been suggested, but our executive board and principal have nixed it due to "privacy" concerns. A good number of us never understood this since every parent has to sign a release form (yes or no) OKing your info being dispersed to the clas moms and helpers for the telephone chain on snow days.
It's been a real hassle, especially since things like birthday party invitations can't be handed out on school property any more. A couple of the moms pressured the principal into OKing it this year and said they'd chair the committee. I'm assuming all costs will be covered by our PTA, there won't be advertising, it will be free unless they find out the copying costs (we have some 720 students in a K-8) and that these moms will probably drop the ball because a project like this can be detail oriented (sorry--personal issues here!).
Personally I don't see what the big deal is, but then again I have a listed phone number in the phone book. I figure when the release form comes home in the "back to school packet" they should just update it to include being listed in a student directory as an option.
Our parent group does ours. We are fortunate in that the school district has a print center that will print and bind the directories for free. We do not accept advertising. Data isn't a big deal because we do an opt-out form at the beginning of the year.
The biggest hassle is definitely going through the data and formatting it, mostly because we haven't had very computer savvy volunteers agree to take it on. I believe we get the data from the school system in Excel, which probably isn't the best software to use for this, but at least it's generally pretty widely available.
Another issue we have had is that our school is growing so much that we have a hard time figuring out when to stick a fork in the data and just go with it--and then we wrestle with if/how to issue updates (we're adding something like 15-20 new kids a month).
Data can be the nightmare. The real hurdles are deciding whether to do an opt in or opt out process, getting a consistent (and favorable) ruling on what school policy is, dealing with the do-not-disclose list, whether or not to include emails, how to list students with multiple households, and - a biggie - editing to assure for accuracy.
Accuracy is a major problem - especially if you have a school with high turnover. One year we sent letters, posted a master at school, begged and pleaded people to proof their contact info, and I still had a committee member whose phone number was wrong because SHE never checked it.
The smoothest year we ever had data-wise used the following steps:
1) Obtained electronic copy of data from school
2) Removed any data on the do-not-disclose file
3) Sent letters home to everyone explaining the timeline and allowing opt outs (or to opt back in if on the do-not-disclose list at school)
4) Made edits from forms sent back
5) Merged address info into a short letter - one per student, that was sorted to print by class, then last name. (The auto-sort made distribution a piece of cake.)
6) Sent the custom letter home with each student so parents could see EXACTLY what would be printed and asked for corrections.
7) Made corrections
8) Published
Simultaneously, volunteers were coordinating the ads and artwork.
On a side note - you hear the most incredible things while clarifying data. Some funny, some not. Divorced couples squabbling about not having the "other" one listed. People's views on privacy. Victims of an abusive relationship with a restraining order against someone and a justifiable fear of exposure of their address.
People who are secretive because they don't really live in district and are using someone else's address.
One mom insisted she only wanted her daughter's phone number printed. No other data, including the child's name. She wanted her child's friends to be able to call, but if a telemarketer or pervert got hold of the directory, she didn't want him to be able to call her child by name and perhaps convice her he was a friend.
When I explained that a phone number just sitting there by itself wouldn't be very helpful but she had the option of being omitted, she reluctantly agreed to let us put the child's last name only along with the phone number.
There seem to be two different sets of issues: data and production.
Production isn't that bad these days with computers and a software savvy volunteer. There are several ways to go about it and they are relatively cheap to produce. We have ours printed at a copy shop and the cost is $1 - $1.50 per copy. So it's pretty easy to recoup the costs.
Ours is printed on 8-1/2 x 11" paper, landscape, folded in half with a cardstock cover.
We accept commercial advertising and this year had parent ads (like $5-$25 and you put in a cheerful comment). We also have an art contest and the results are used for the cover and section dividers.
I think the commercial advertising equals $800-$1200. We have a volunteer with a sales background. She has a good process and we have mostly repeat advertisers. The inside front and back cover are the most sought after, some years we let those go to the highest bidder instead of a set amount. Otherwise it's a set amount per full, half, or quarter page.
We organize it so each grade is a section. The first page has columns with a list of students (names only) by teacher. Subsequent pages list all the student contact info alphabetically within the grade. We include student name, parents' names, address info, phone. (We don't include email addresses or cell phones.) A parent can choose to include all or only part, like maybe phone but not address.
