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A year ago when the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado was considering ways to fund a GPS tracking system so dispatchers would know the location of buses, officials asked, Why not use the buses themselves to generate the needed cash?
So the district, which serves five suburban cities near Denver, contracted with an advertising company for 3-foot by 5-foot print ads to be installed on the exterior of many of its 220 buses.
During the 2006-2007 school year, the district received $75,000 in ad revenue from the venture, a total that district officials hope will swell to at least $100,000 next year, says Richard Collier, executive director of facility support.
This year's funding will pay for the planned launch of the bus-tracking system over the next few years. The money will also let the district expand the number of buses with digital video recorders for monitoring student behavior, he says.
Some cash-strapped districts have wrestled with the question of whether or not to allow advertising in schools. The controversial idea has districts weighing the value of revenue gained against the potential intrusion of commercial interests into school life.
Another dilemma is ensuring that any ads are age-appropriate and health oriented in light of new wellness policies governing soft drinks, potato chips and sweets, which recently have been nearly eliminated from many school contracts to promote healthy lifestyles.
Critics of advertising say that it unethically takes advantage of a "captive audience" of children and runs contrary to traditional public educational values. "The purpose of education is to gain knowledge, acquire a love of learning," says Robert Weissman, managing director of Commercial Alert, a critic of ads. "Those are the processes that are interfered with and undermined by marketing messages. The role of the school in helping children and youth develop their own authentic personality is undermined by pervasive commercial influence."
Ads Outside the Bus
Not all states allow ads on buses, and those that do differ on whether they allow the ads inside or outside the buses.
Cherry Creek School District, which contracted with advertising company Media Advertising in Motion, has used bus ads from the U.S. Army, local flower nurseries, a local newspaper, local television news programs and restaurants.
The district considered the dilemma of introducing commercial elements into transportation but decided that exterior ads weren't intrusive. "In our case, it's more of a rolling billboard kind of thing, where the advertising is targeted at the community rather than kids inside the bus," says Collier, adding that the state of Colorado permits only exterior bus ads.
Paid ads have been placed on about 150 of 220 buses. Some of the other buses have either public service announcement ads or are special-ed buses, which because of their different shape and size are unable to host standard size ads.
Arizona-based Media Advertising in Motion-which has worked with districts in Arizona and Colorado and hopes to enter the California market soon-has placed more than 800 signs to date, according to company president Jim O'Connell.
The company typically offers districts 60 percent of the gross revenue, but this could rise over time, O'Connell says. Since entering the business about two years ago, the company has provided school districts with nearly $900,000 in revenue.
"In our case, it's more of a rolling billboard where advertising is targeted at the community rather than kids inside the bus."-Richard Collier, executive director of facility support, Cherry Creek (Colo.) School District
Cherry Creek carefully considers the ad content to ensure it is appropriate. Like many other districts using bus ads, Cherry Creek created a content review committee, which is made up of Collier, an assistant superintendent, a public information officer, the director of transportation and the director of the school district's foundation. The committee reviews each ad before it is installed on buses.
Because of the difficulty of writing criteria that will cover every potential advertisement, Cherry Creek's committee members rely more on a "we'll know it when we see it" approach, but they avoid tobacco, alcohol and fast food. The district has accepted ads from television stations promoting sports, weather and newscasts, but it has avoided ads for specific primetime television shows because of the risk that some community members might find them offensive.
