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The Newspapers in Education program at The News Tribune began in January 1998. The program was set up and utilized a formal marketing plan to obtain sponsors who would help provide free newspapers to requesting teachers, and the establishment of a NIE teacher advisory board to help guide the direction of the program, and to research and recommend the purchase of teacher curriculum guides to go along with copies of The News Tribune delivered to the classroom.
In order to provide free newspapers to requesting teachers, sponsors were sought to underwrite the printing and distribution of newspapers for the classroom. Thanks to sponsorship support, more than 400,000 newspapers are provided free to participating teachers each school year, as well as the development of NIE brochures, NIE newsletters and an NIE web site. Subscribers of The News Tribune have also supported the NIE program by donating their newspapers through the vacation donation program, with the unused credit of their subscription when they stop their paper temporarily. Funds received by this program have provided additional newspapers for free classroom use. Summer teacher workshops were developed to allow teachers to learn ways to use the newspaper within their classrooms, and were conducted by members of the NIE Advisory Board. Since 1998, business sponsors have provided the main funding to provide classroom newspapers to requesting teachers throughout the South Sound. Teachers in more than 40 South Sound school districts as well as private schools, adult literacy programs, and both juvenile and adult correctional programs are currently making use of free newspapers as an instructional tool in the classroom. |
