Subway and Scholastics Books are hosting an online writing project for children ages PreK through 6th grade. The grand prize winner receives some awesome prizes, including $5,000 worth of athletic equipment for their school.
PROBLEM - they have a disclaimer at the bottom of the page stating that the contest is specifically not open to homeschool students.
Excuse me, but there are MILLIONS of homeschool students in this nation and this is just discrimination. A homeschool student could easily donate the athletic equipment to their homeschool athletic association, local park, athletic center, neighborhood center or the like. I realize they are doing this to have a mass marketing effect, but they could have just as great a media response from a charitable homeschool student donating the prize.
I believe this is a wonderful opportunity for us to make our voices heard that we as homeschool families are tired of being cast in a negative light.
Here is the link to the program so you can read the disclaimer for yourself. Click on the "Parents" link - I believe you have to enter a birthday in order to log on. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll see that it is open to public, private and parochial schools but specifically excludes homeschool students.
I've also provided a link to the Subway comment form, where I sent a letter this morning expressing my displeasure and dismay that they would exclude such a large student group.
For more info on the contest go to: http://www.subwayfreshbuzz.com/kids/
Click on the box at the bottom of the page for the Sandwich Story Contest.
You can contact scholastic at: P&CConnects@scholastic.com or
CConnects@scholastic.com.
You can contact Subway at:
http://www.subway.com/Applications/CustService/frmCustomerService.aspx
Subway and Scholastic need to realize what a major mistake it is to exclude such a large student population just because they have their classwork done at home.
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Friday, May 23, 2008
Homeschoolers - Act Now!
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14 comments:
This is ridiculous. In this day and age I'm glad my kid has graduated. I'd be leary of sending him to our school now.
home school
Thanks for posting this information. If you would like to help get it out to a wider audience, consider adding a Digg button, or making this Digg link available to your readers. I've created a Digg entry for this article, and our local homeschool support group has been discussing the issue...
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I'm sure they knew that public school students wouldn't have a chance against homeschoolers. They really should have had a homeschooler check their spelling. As a mother who has completed homeschooling my sons, I am tired of the negative treatment that homeschoolers receive. We went to church with many public school teachers and they gave us a hard time about what we were doing. However, not one of their own children went to college and they barely graduated from high school. My sons received scholarships and earned graduate degrees. I will never set foot in a Subway and I will let them know.
I faxed a letter to the Frederick DeLuca, head of Doctors Associates, Inc, who is listed as owning Subway.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/40/40450.html
We have homeschooled our nine year old from day one and he can spell "basket", unlike their webmaster.....
I just read about this at World Net Daily. I home-schooled my daughter from second grade through twelfth grade.
Although I can understand why they would be afraid that public schools will be shown up, once again, by home-schoolers, I do not like their bias. I sent them an e-mail and am letting all of my friends who home-school know about this.
Hello from Texas,
My name is Kara, my family and I live North of Ft. Worth, Texas. We have 3 boys, ages 9, 7 and 5 and we homeschool. I love your blog, we also raise cattle on our farm. We have Aberdeen Black Angus cattle. Thanks for all of the wonderful recipes! I cannot wait to try them! Have a blessed Memorial Day Weekend!
In Christ,
Kara-North Texas Jer. 29:11-13
karamy3sons.blogspot.com
PS. Please tell your husband "Thank You" for serving our country so that we can remain free today!!
I think it was when the prize was discussed and chosen that the exclusion of home schoolers must have occurred. Subway wanted a writing contest so any child could possibly enter, but then wanted to not reward individual achievement by giving a prize to the school. It's like if one child gets an A grade the entire class is given an A grade! So, in their limited vision they naturally excluded home schoolers from receiving the big prize. Wrong to exclude but it was the predictable result of the constant liberal mantra that individuals work for the state.
There is a simple solution to this problem. Don't just e-mail and complain, BOYCOTT them!!!
I am doing both!
http://www.petitiononline.com/home777/petition.html
The link for the online petition to boycott Subway.
you were mentioned in the WND article by Mr. Baggett and this is my response to him. There is room for a lot more comment and the problem is much broader and deeper Subway and Scolastic. I will likely have more to say on this subject.
Mr. Baggett:
Just finished reading your report. I do not patronize Subway so I cannot boycott Subway but where does Scholastic come into the picture? Quite a few years back when I sailed Merchant Marine part time with Sabine Towing of Port Arthur, Texas becaused it was non union and I could sail relief when one of their regular firemen or oiler needed a vacation. It worked fine for both of us.
During this time I was on the SS Colorado with a load of fuel from Texas to Bayonne, New Jersey. While discharging I went to the Scholastic Office in the
Empire State building to offer a childrens story I had written and illustrated. Scholastic was not interested and told me I had to restrict my vocabulary to their chosen list of words that could not produce a good story. They have also been a major supplier of text books to the failed school system and those text books contain many problems. This is quite deliberate. So what does Subway have to do with Scholastic. Which one came up with the idea? I would look for Scholastic to be very much involved and it would be consistant with what I know of them.
> Problem solved – good will all around. Too bad that it didn't play out that way.
It may turn our to be a good thing it turns out this way. Maybe it will throw more light on the problem and we will have the better vision to deal with it. Check out that relationship.
Whit350
I must respectfully disagree :) I think the contest rules make sense and are fair, and in no way a slight to homeschoolers or our freedoms. I think there are bigger, better battles to fight. It shames me to see the emotional, trigger-finger response to this all over the net and that I, by association, am lumped in with that group. It's sad, but by issuing that kind of response, we are simply marginalizing ourselves and casting ourselves in a whiny and unproductive light.
LOL! If you check out their website now, you'll see they fixed all the spelling errors. Apparently whoever fixed them couldn't be bothered to look up "United States" so they replaced it with US... much easier to spell.
What a wonderful country we live in... if you can't spell it - abbreviate it!
I think we should show the other cheek. Instead of boycott, lets all pick a day and eat at our local subway and let the individual owners know that we don't hold them responsible. I think there is a more effective way to communicate the fact that there are many of us and we should be included. Jesus said if someone forces you to go a mile, go two (Matt 5:41). Anyone can boycott. Even so, anyone can love a friend. But to love those that persecute you shows the true nature and power of God. Grace? Forgiveness? Anybody? What light do you carry in this world? I have further posted about this at my own blog. Comments are welcome. http://justinlately.blogspot.com/2008/05/homeschool-subway-boycott-pray-about.html
**SUBWAY APOLOGIZES**
HSLDA apparently got involved and Subay sent them the following response:
To HSLDA:
We at SUBWAY restaurants place a high value on education, regardless of the setting, and have initiated a number of programs and promotions aimed at educating our youth in the areas of health and fitness.
We sincerely apologize to anyone who feels excluded by our current essay contest. Our intention was to provide an opportunity for traditional schools, many of which we know have trouble affording athletic equipment, to win equipment. Our intent was certainly not to exclude homeschooled children from the opportunity to win prizes and benefit from better access to fitness equipment.
To address the inadvertent limitation of our current contest and provide an opportunity for even more kids to improve their fitness, we will soon create an additional contest in which homeschooled students will be encouraged to participate. When the kids win, everyone wins!
—Subway restaurants
Link:
http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/200805280.asp
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