Media Contact: Janice Hickey
El Segundo Unified School District
641 Sheldon Avenue
El Segundo, CA. 90245
(310) 615-2650 x 250
“Best Buy” Turns Out to Be Best Buy for El Segundo “A” Students
Local electronics megastore offers incentives students can’t resist
El Segundo, CA – July 22, 2008 – When electronics giant “Best Buy” took a look around at the community it was newly serving in the South Bay, it hit upon a great idea. “We just thought that a good way to introduce ourselves to the local community was by offering students incentives to excel in their education,” Katherine Percival, Hiring and Training Coordinator for Best Buy offered. New to the El Segundo Plaza, and eager to begin making strong community ties, Best Buy reached out to the El Segundo and Manhattan Beach school districts with the “It Pays to Get A’s” program.
The idea was simple, really. Every student who could march into the Best Buy store and show the store manager an “A” on his or her year-end report card, would receive a $5 bonus for each of their “A’s” – up to a total of $25. Students could redeem their “scholarships” inside the store, on video games, CDs, flash drives, or any other merchandise their hearts desired.
So how many El Segundo students took them up on their offer? Enough that the warehouse giant was set back $12,145, which comes out to 2,429 A’s walking in Best Buy’s front door. Superintendent Geoff Yantz was thrilled with the success of the program. “We are of course especially proud of our young students who work so hard to excel,” he acknowledged. “But what really blows me away is that a new business would enter a community and be so aggressive about reaching out to build relationships with the school district by rewarding the students for excellence. That to me is the definition of a ‘good neighbor,’” Yantz said happily.
This neighborly largesse plays directly into the theme El Segundo Unified School District explored this past year, and is using as the touchstone for the 2008-09 faculty and staff professional development: “Bridges to Partnerships.” “We started last year with our all-day in-service summit at the Los Angeles Air Force Base,” Yantz said. “We reached out to local business leaders and had a top-notch panel of local business, military and educational leaders. Together we began the discussion of the needs and concerns we all have about readying our students for a 21st Century global society.”
Needless to say, along with communication, critical thinking, and problem solving skills, technology plays an important part of readying students for the challenges awaiting them in the fast-paced, ever-changing workplace.
“To have Best Buy inherently understand the need to encourage children to excel, and to reward them for doing so by allowing them to redeem their scholarships for technology products available through the store is right in line with the way this district and our business community is thinking,” Yantz concludes. “This is undoubtedly the beginning of an extraordinarily profitable relationship -- with our students coming out the big winners.” Kathryn Percival couldn’t agree more. “Education has always been a top priority at Best Buy. To be able to reward the students of our community for outstanding academic achievement has been a real honor.”