The electronic sign in front of Linden High School may begin showing ads along with school messages, a deal Linden officials were told could bring in $100,000 a year.
The North Hunterdon-Voorhees High School District is exploring “corporate partnership opportunities” that could paste company logos on everything from high school football scoreboards to library walls.
In Lyndhurst, school officials next year will study the idea of selling ads and sponsorships on school buildings. Among the places they’re eyeing is the high school roof.
“When you’re going into Newark Airport, you fly right over our high school,” said Superintendent Tracey Marinelli. “Why not see if Ralph Lauren or Donald Trump would like to paint an ad there?”
Three years after New Jersey school districts saw their budgets squeezed by state funding cuts and spending caps, many are looking to make ends meet by selling advertising space.
“If you can sell a little space and bring in discretionary money for student programs, why not?” said Linden School Superintendent Rocco Tomazic, who said he first noticed ad banners in a rival high school gym during a 2010 basketball tournament. Earlier that year, Linden lost $8 million in state aid and had to cut sports programs and staff.
“There was a time when people said, ‘Should we have commercials in schools?’ But the Olympics have sponsors. Sports teams have sponsors,” Tomazic said. “We’re not like a NASCAR driver where they’ve got junk all over the uniform. If it will make sure we can keep after-school activities, why not?”
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Some advertising has always been around in schools, from booster ads in the high school yearbook to signs paid for by businesses along the outfield fence. But after Gov. Chris Christie slashed nearly $1 billion from schools in 2010 — about half of which has since been restored — many officials began envisioning school facilities as money makers.
Medford school officials are hoping to “monetize” their schools by selling ads at the middle school track or naming rights to libraries, cafeterias and classrooms, according to “asset partnership opportunities” posted on the district website.
School officials there also helped push for a new law allowing ads on school buses, and earlier this month, Medford became one of the first to use it.
Murphy’s Marketplace, a South Jersey supermarket chain, will pay $48,000 over four years for ads on Medford’s fleet of 55 yellow buses.
“Let me put it this way, it’s $48,000 the district didn’t have before,” said Medford Superintendent Joseph Del Rossi.
HELPING THEMSELVESRetired Medford Assistant Superintendent Bryan McGair is now managing director of Advantage3, a firm that markets school ads. Medford hired the ad firm before he retired, and he was then hired by the company, he said.
Advantage3 normally gets 35 percent of ad proceeds, but because Medford’s is the first bus ad deal, McGair said, the district will get it all.
He points out that schools are already full of advertising — for other companies and products.
“Every computer in the lab is an Apple or a Dell,” he said. “What’s wrong with the school district looking to help itself?”
The school bus law was required because the state Motor Vehicle Commission previously barred ads on school buses. Department of Education officials said they know of no regulations governing advertising elsewhere in schools.
New Jersey School Boards Association spokesman Mike Yaple said the decision whether to put ads in schools should be decided by each community.
CRITICS' WARNINGAcross the country, strapped school districts are also turning to advertising, according to the consumer group Public Citizen, which said the risk of commercializing schools outweighs the benefits. In a 2012 report, the Washington, D.C.-based group said that school ads provide less than half of 1 percent of school revenues and that “middleman” firms take a big chunk of profits.
“It teaches students that everything is for sale,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. “Kids are, of course, exposed to advertising all the time, but schools should not endorse and add to the constant marketing.”
Ad content is another question. School districts say they have right of refusal, and some things — like cigarettes and alcohol — are an obvious “no.” But some districts anticipate they will need to constantly monitor other potential ads, like fast food or video games.
A FAIR TRADESome parents see ads as a small price to pay.
The North Hunterdon-Voorhees district in October contracted with Advantage3 to assess its two high schools — North Hunterdon and Voorhees — and develop a “corporate partnership” portfolio. It proposed placing logos everywhere from school entrances to the band rooms and football fields.
Voorhees parent Mary Kay Love said she wouldn’t want to see deli ads in the music room, but didn’t see a “major problem” elsewhere.
“If it were a matter of cutting the music program to bare bones or sticking a logo up somewhere to keep it going, I say keep it going,” she said.
Even after they’ve taken the plunge into marketing, however, some districts find it isn’t so easy.
North Hunterdon-Voorhees in 2011 began offering affinity credit cards decorated with its mascots, the North Hunterdon Lion and the Voorhees Viking. They earn $50 for each account, plus a portion of dollars spent, said district spokeswoman Maren Smagala.
Accounts can only be opened by those over 18.
So far, the district has earned $162.
“We didn’t know how it was going to do,” Smagala said. “We are looking for other revenue ideas.”
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