More cities and states are turning to display ads on the sides of school buses for extra revenue. Colorado was one of the first states to allow it. Some parents are worried about the messages children receive from the ads.

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

With their budgets tight, some school districts are coming up with funds by selling ads on school buses. Ads for banks, insurance companies and pizza chains are showing up on the sides of those yellow buses, and not everybody’s happy.

Grace Hood from member station KUNC reports on the debate in Colorado.

GRACE HOOD: Half a dozen parents in Greeley, Colorado are sitting in their cars, waiting for a yellow bus to deliver their elementary kids. Starting next school year, parent Stan Whittaker will see ads and logos when the bus pulls up.

Mr. STAN WHITTAKER: We have to be kind of streetwise, where we have to find different ways to make money and to survive.

HOOD: But dad Shane Gabriel isn’t happy.

Mr. SHANE GABRIEL: It’s a bad thing.

HOOD: Why?

Mr. GABRIEL: Because you’re using the kids to make money.

HOOD: Some ads for food and restaurants will be aimed at kids. But others that might promote insurance or home improvement are for an adult audience.

With revenues down and little hope for raising taxes, the school district’s Wayne Eads is hoping that kids simply won’t notice.

Mr. WAYNE EADS (Budget Director, Weld County School District): It is external advertising on the outside of busses, so kids basically won’t see it except as the bus drives by.

HOOD: Arizona, New Mexico and Tennessee, which allow school bus ads, also regulate it, barring tobacco and alcohol. In Northern Colorado, the move is expected to bring in about $10,000 next year. It may not sound like much, but it could grow. Dallas County School District in Texas has earned more than $94,000 since the school year started.

Unidentified Man: Two minutes – two minutes, and we’ll bring it back and discuss.

HOOD: At Wasson High School in Colorado Springs, students are discussing ads in their Media Studies class. This was the first school district in the country to use the school bus ads back in 1993.

Unidentified Man: Does anyone here ride a bus that has advertising on it? What products do they actually advertise? Dan?

DAN: I’ve seen some with, like, the Pizza Hut logo.

Unidentified Man: Okay. Okay. Restaurants. Okay, what else?

HOOD: But Pizza Hut doesn’t actually advertise on busses. What he’s seen are one-by-four foot ads for Domino’s. In fact, no student could remember any actual advertisers. And that’s why Elaine Naleski, with the Colorado Springs School District, says she recommends the practice to others. In good times, the money goes for extras like band equipment. In bad times, the money goes to the general fund.

Ms. ELAINE NALESKI (Colorado Springs School District): Kids don’t really notice them. I don’t think the advertisers like hearing that, but they don’t really notice them.

Mr. JOSH GOLIN (Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood): Teaching children that things we own is what defines us and is going to make us happy is not a lesson that’s good to teach kids in – particularly in schools.

HOOD: Josh Golin is with the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood. He says these ads lead kids to be more materialistic. And he points to South Carolina, which banned them.

Mr. SCOTT LAWRENCE (Advertising Executive): We base our advertising on reach and coverage.

HOOD: Scott Lawrence works for an ad agency representing the Southern Colorado tourist destination Royal Gorge Bridge and Park. He says the ads are targeted at young families and baby boomers, not kids.

Mr. LAWRENCE: School bus advertising gave us a unique opportunity to get some coverage in areas that we couldn’t normally get.

HOOD: Meaning into residential neighborhoods that typically don’t allow billboards.

(Soundbite of bus motor)

HOOD: Back in Colorado Springs, Susan Callan is standing outside North Middle School, waiting for her son’s basketball game to start. Even though the ads have been up for almost two decades here, she says she’s never noticed them.

Ms. SUSAN CALLAN: It’s more important to have the busses running than it is to worry about that advertisement, I think.

HOOD: In the coming months, five more states, including Florida and Washington, will decide if they’ll turn to school bus advertisers to help balance the books.

For NPR News, I’m Grace Hood.

 

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