Ads are called unrelated to debate

The debate over tuition-tax credits for private schools has been heating up at the Legislature this month. But an executive with Newspaper Agency Corp. said the private and charter school advertising section running in today's edition of the Deseret Morning News is not related to issues at the state Capitol complex.

Suzanne Benitez, a sales executive for NAC, the advertising arm of the News, said the special section was the brainchild of NAC to assist parents in selecting a school for next year.

The supplement was produced solely by NAC and not the newspaper staff.

Benitez said NAC chose to run the section this week because it is the time of year when schools hold open houses and kick off open enrollment for next year. Between January and March, private, charter and public schools start gathering head counts and doing preregistration in order to estimate enrollment for the next school year.

Though the ad section specifically targeted charter and private schools, Benitez said she would have welcomed submissions from traditional public schools as well.

Charter schools are free and often have specific focuses such as arts, film, technology and dual-language.

The section highlights 34 private and public schools. Benitez said she sent media kits to all private and charter schools informing them of the section and schools could pay anywhere from $550 to $3,200 to run their ad.

This is the first time NAC has printed the section and Benitez said they will most likely will do it again next year.

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E-mail: terickson@desnews.com