School District says ENTIRE district is Lifetouch Contract Only!

drh681 said:

hehehe they left out Gamblers and Actors!

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Gamblers aren't licensed in Michigan, but croupiers are. And you'd better be able to pass enough of a background check to get bonded for any position in a casino, right down to janitorial.

Try to get a serious acting job without guild membership, which involves background checks.

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Normally, a signature this small can't open its own jumpgate.

Ciao! Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com

I really fail to see what you are trying to achieve?

OK, so you can see the contract via the 'freedom of information act'
but then what?

Seems to me that you are wasting a lot time, that would be more productive in seeking work elsewhere.

Abe Evans said:

In Georgia, the independent photographers went to court for the
right to include senior portraits in the yearbook. We won because
it was "Restraint of Trade" to allow only 1 company's photos to be
used. Not all states are like that but the same case will win as
the trade applies to Federal law. As far as lower class photos, I
think it would also work but not economically feasible.

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That's the cool thing about this case, and what makes it different from a yearbook case. It doesn't require substantial resources to require a yearbook publisher to accept a certain "standard format" for the yearbook pictures. If it's 645 medium format, any studio that can shoot a 645 is "in".

It does require resources to support one company per school doing all the class pictures, instead of one company per district. So requiring contractors to bid on covering the entire district isn't "restraint of trade". The only way to be able to fight that is to be able to put together "whole district" packages, and that may require that several local photographers band together as a loosely organized (but legal) entity, like a small LLC. It can be done.

Abe Evans said:

The contract should be made public as it is a public school system
and supported by taxpayers.

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Yup, but sometimes "made public" involves jumping through a few hoops. I like the way Douglass Adams put it in the h2g2...

"You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to the building plans had you? I mean like actually telling anyone or anything."

"But the plans were on display."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a torch."

"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look you found the notice didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of The Leopard'".

--
Normally, a signature this small can't open its own jumpgate.

Ciao! Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com

So I am curious how the school can sign an exclusive contract when the California Interscholastic Federation which governs sports in the state already signed with Max Preps for all sports. I would think that would make the school ineligible to participate in sports. hhhmmmmm….
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Canon User ~ Sports Photography ~ Kokomo, Indiana

243 days?? where do you live? school is open about 9 months. forget the last month and the first couple weeks of school. forget all the school holidays, teacher in service days etc. remember in the example we are talking about a small studio not a large organization with photographers all over the country. So maybe we are looking at 3 states, now subtract travel, hotel, car expenses. Days working on shipping portraits to schools, paperwork ( Taxes, sales taxes etc.) Days lost due to traveling. You have to look at the whole picture.

drh681 said:

so call it 500$ a day after the overhead is covered.
what is our notional school photog doing with the 243 work days of
the the rest of the year?
if he carries on that 14% margin he's doing OK.
--
Member of The Pet Rock Owners and Breeders Association
Boarding and Training at Reasonable Rates
Photons by the bag.
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if I mock you, it may be well deserved.

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--
I shot the White Album and other untruths by,
David Phipps

It's a hard bit to swallow, but think about it this way. Because peoiple are electing to pay for photos and the school receives a cut. That's that much less they have to charge in taxes. If you cut out all the external revenue streams schools have, most of that money has to be made up somewhere. and it will be your taxes.
--
I shot the White Album and other untruths by,
David Phipps