Lee County found $1.2 million for its marketing firm. Parents deserve to know what it bought.

The answer, from the district's own purchasing records: since July 2023, it has issued $1,175,072 in purchase orders to one firm, Priority Marketing of Southwest Florida.

By Ali Olivo · September 22, 2026

This year, Lee County principals were handed spring projections showing school budgets falling by $31.5 million, softened only by a bridge fund we believe lasts one year. At the time of publishing, I asked the School District whether the bridge funds are one year only and am awaiting the response. Meanwhile, teachers are stretching supplies. Parents are being told our students are “flourishing.”

So I asked the district a simple question: how much has it spent on marketing?

The answer, from the district’s own purchasing records: since July 2023, it has issued $1,175,072 in purchase orders to one firm, Priority Marketing of Southwest Florida.

Most of it can’t be traced

That money went out on 45 purchase orders. The biggest ones say almost nothing. About $710,000 sits on open-ended purchase orders with descriptions like “FY26 Public Relations and Marketing” and “Open PO.” Nothing in them says what the district actually bought.

Another $278,387 went to signage, wall wraps, and murals. Some of it was coded, bafflingly, as “Arts & Crafts Supply” and “Services, Other (DJ/Magic/Bounce House).”

These are purchase orders, meaning money authorized rather than necessarily spent. That’s exactly the point. The district hasn’t shown parents what was spent or what it produced.

What we can see raises questions

The district did produce a report on one campaign: streaming-TV ads that ran in January and February, promoting enrollment in VPK, dual enrollment, and career and technical programs. It delivered about 104,000 streaming impressions.

What the report doesn’t say is what it cost. There’s no price and no rate, and it doesn’t name the company that placed the ads. It lines up with a $10,000 “Enrollment Campaign” purchase order, but the report itself doesn’t tell taxpayers what they paid.

It also lists its target audience as “Families and Lee County voters age 65–75.” I don’t know why a preschool enrollment campaign would target voters in their late 60s and early 70s. There may be an ordinary explanation. The district should give it.

Paying for good press

Then there’s the magazine column.

For July 2026 through June 2027, Priority Marketing proposed ghostwriting one article a month for a “guest column” in Southwest Florida Family magazine. The stated goal, in the firm’s own proposal, is to “highlight the positive outcomes and successes for the District.” The cost is $700 to $950 an article.

As of the time of writing this op-ed, an article titled “Lee County School Arts Programs Are Thriving” was published on September 2, 2026 on neafamily.com, the Southwest Florida Family website. The first-person narrator says they spent 10 years as a music teacher before becoming the district’s assistant director of arts, athletics, and activities. The byline, though, is Jane MacNealy, who appears on the site as the publisher. The piece never names the district employee who is speaking.

A school district is allowed to tell its story. But when parents open a family magazine and read good news about their schools, they deserve to know when the district paid a marketing firm to write it.

The fair counterargument

Some of this is defensible, and I want to be fair about it.

The district really does need to recruit teachers and bus drivers, and part of this spending was for exactly that. Enrollment marketing can arguably pay for itself, since state funding follows students. Some of the signage was paid from funds restricted to capital projects, which couldn’t have gone to salaries anyway. And to the district’s credit, this year’s new marketing retainers are smaller than last year’s.

But most of this money, about $883,000, carries fund code 10000, which we believe is the district’s general operating fund, the same pot that pays for classrooms. And “it pays for itself” is a claim, not a result. If marketing is bringing in students and staff, the district should be able to show it: what each campaign cost, who it reached, and what it produced.

Right now, it can’t, or won’t.

What I think

I don’t believe $1.2 million over three years would have closed a $31.5 million gap on its own, and I won’t pretend it would. This is about priorities, and about what gets scrutiny.

Every school budget in this county was combed through line by line this spring. Teachers were told to justify positions, and schools were told to live within enrollment. The same standard should apply to the district’s own image. For scale: a starting teacher in Lee County is paid $54,500, and the district pays another $9,514 toward employee-only health coverage. In July alone, the first month of the year schools were told to cut, the district opened $185,894 in new purchase orders with its marketing firm.

When money is short, the first dollars should go where children are: classrooms, the teachers in them, and the buses that get kids there. Marketing should have to earn its place in line.

What parents should ask for

• The invoices behind the open-ended purchase orders, showing what the $710,000 bought
• The cost and results of every paid campaign, including the streaming ads, and an explanation of why a preschool enrollment campaign targeted voters aged 65 to 75
• Disclosure on every paid column, so readers know when the district is paying for the story they’re reading
• The same line-by-line review for the district’s marketing budget that schools went through this spring

You can email the board at BoardOffice@leeschools.net.

The documents

The records this piece is built on, exactly as the district produced them under public records request 26-607. Read them yourself.

• Purchase orders to Priority Marketing The district's own PO report. 100 line items, 45 purchase orders, July 2023 to July 2026.
• Southwest Florida Family project brief Priority Marketing's proposal for the monthly ghostwritten guest column, July 2026 to June 2027.
• OTT streaming campaign report The January and February 2026 streaming campaign report, nine pages.

The resource behind this piece: How to file a Florida public records request, and keep the fee down

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