Jewelry store gets the gold mine; Carroll gets the shaft

So let me get this right.

A jewelry company gives the Carroll High School prom queen a $700 silver tiara.

The jewelry chain gets publicity.

An 18-year-old girl gets a nice crown.

And Carroll High School gets. ...

Absolutely nothing.

That is, unless you count the bashing Carroll is getting about an extravagant prom crown.

If I lived in Southlake, I'd be worried about giving expensive jewelry to the winner of a popularity contest.

But I'd be even more concerned that the Carroll schools got zero out of the promotion.

Trustees voted in June to license Bailey Banks & Biddle of New York as the "exclusive provider" of Carroll prom tiaras though 2009.

In exchange, the jewelry chain agreed to give the prom queen -- this year, Margaux Schwartzstein -- a tiara.

The store buys $14,540 worth of other advertising annually for Carroll events. It's one of the district's corporate sponsors.

"It was an interesting and unique addition to the marketing package," said school board President Erin Shoupp, a former finance executive. "Here was a local retailer that was attempting to do something very significant."

Trustees didn't see anything wrong with a gift tiara, she said. But they also didn't foresee a lot of publicity.

"At no time did we know what the tiara would be worth," said Julie Thannum, the district's marketing boss.

For nearly 10 years, Carroll has raised extra money by selling ads and signage, and lining up business promotions.

But Carroll doesn't usually give away a valuable advertising placement, particularly not in front of hundreds of future jewelry buyers.

This time, the district agreed to accept the tiara without an extra charge.

After all, Carroll saved $30 by not buying the usual crown.

Thannum said administrators saw the offer as a token gift from a "good corporate partner."

But on the star-telegram.com message boards, this is the ugliest prom queen scene since Carrie.

The usual Southlake bashers and Carroll Dragons playa-hatas are out in force. But other readers asked good questions:

"Couldn't the jewelers present the prom queen with a scholarship?"

"Why isn't the tiara auctioned off to raise money for the school?"

And a gender equity question: "What did they give the prom king?"

Somebody else asked what the prom queen gets at Highland Park High School in the posh suburb surrounded by north Dallas.

The answer: a thrifty $50 crown from Sam Moon Trading Co.

I called a Harvard psychiatry instructor Tuesday to ask about commercialism and marketing in schools. She added her own question.

"If you get a $700 tiara for being prom queen, what are you going to expect in college?" asked Susan Linn, author of Consuming Kids and director of the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. "There's something in really bad taste about a high school girl getting a $700 tiara for being popular."

I asked her whether a car dealer could give the valedictorian a sports car.

"No!" she said. "Not when it's all about marketing and not about kids."

She wishes schools wouldn't sell ads. But if they do, they should charge what the promotions are worth.

"Our schools are selling out the kids," she said, "and they're not selling them for very much."

Sometimes a free gift carries a very high price.