Pressed by Charters, Public Schools Try Marketing
Rafaela Espinal held her first poolside chat last summer, offering cheese, crackers and apple cider to draw people in to hear her pitch.
She keeps a handful of brochures in her purse, and also gives a few to her daughter before she leaves for school each morning. She painted signs on the windows of her Chrysler minivan, turning it into a mobile advertisement.
It is all an effort to build awareness for her product, which is not new, but is in need of an image makeover: a public school in Harlem.
As charter schools have grown in New York City, both in number and in popularity, public school principals like Ms. Espinal are suddenly being forced to compete for bodies. So among their many challenges, some of these principals, who had never given much thought to attracting students, have been spending considerable time toiling over ways to market their schools.
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