Schools

WCASD Discusses Advertising

The West Chester School District moves forward with a plan to sell advertising space within schools.

The West Chester School Board Property and Finance Committee moved forward with a recommendation Tuesday that would allow advertising inside the district’s schools possibly generating as much as $95,000 in revenue.

“The critical piece will be the policy we put in place for advertisers,” said school board member and committee chair Sean Carpenter.  “Some districts have good plans, and we want to emulate those.”

Dr. Suzanne Moore, the district’s director of business affairs, laid out a plan for the committee that would have the district ready to sell advertisements as early as May of this year.

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Dr. Moore recommended that a committee of parents, administrators and business office staff work to form a policy on what kind of ads would be allowed in schools.

“We want to promote messages like ‘read a book’ or ‘eat fruit,’” Carpenter said.  “We need to draft a policy so that we get exactly the kind of advertising we want.”

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Once a policy has been established, Dr. Moore recommends that the school board approve the policy, and then the district would hire an advertising broker to sell ad space in the schools.

“We need to put an emphasis on the message of these ads,” said school board member Linda Raileanu.  “They can reinforce the great messages that are already being put out their by our staff.”

Dr. Moore also said that a policy would help the district get a handle on the advertising that already exists in schools.

“The policy should address what’s already going on in our schools,” Dr. Moore said.  “There’s a lot of free signage that already exists.”

However, both Dr. Moore and Carpenter stated that the policy would only affect advertising done inside the schools.

“We’ve made it clear that we’re not intending to step on the toes of the boosters who sell ads on our ball fields for fundraising,” Carpenter said.  “We’re just talking about ads inside of schools.”

 


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