School Committee to Consider Advertising in Schools

A broken scoreboard and budget woes has the School District taking a hard look at its policy barring ads on school structures and property.

The School Committee reviewed the policy at a public work session Tuesday night. The discussion was prompted after Cranston Athletic Director, Michael C. Traficante, said that the gymnasium scoreboard at Cranston High School East was in disrepair and that a new one could be provided free of charge if the school will allow companies to advertise on it.

“We really need to look at our advertising policy,” said Superintendent Peter Nero at the work session. “We can put a scoreboard up that’s about $10,000 and it won’t cost us a dime.”

The scoreboard deal would be with  Side Effects Inc., a Midwestern advertising company that would solicit advertisers for the scoreboard over the next ten years. In return for that advertising money, the company will provide the board for free. After ten years, any additional advertising would be split between the company and the school committee, Traficante said.  The ads would be located on the top and bottom of the scoreboard.

“[The advertisers] could be local businesses or franchise businesses,” Nero said. “We have control of what goes up there.”

The scoreboard that currently hangs in the Cranston East gymnasium is non-operational, according to Traficante. He said he had attempted to get it fixed three times this winter by the company that has fixed it over the past 17 years. They finally said that it was unfixable.

“We need a scoreboard, but we don’t have the money. " Traficante said, " I don’t foresee the school board handing us over $10,000."

If advertising is allowed, Side Effects could put the scoreboard up in three months, according to Traficante.

The current policy, created in 2001, states, “Advertising of commercial goods and services shall not be permanently attached to school structures nor be prominently displayed on the school property.”

Altering the current policy may open up other revenue sources from ads.

School Committee member Frank Lombardi said that ideas other than the scoreboard should also be considered.  These included advertisements posted in the entrance of the schools and plasma T.V.s provided free of charge with advertising agreements.

The district has also weighed the possibility of selling advertising space on school buses.

“Once we relax the policy we may have other companies who will come to us and say we can provide this or we can provide that," Nero said, adding that a committee could be formed to evaluate advertisments before they were put up to make sure nothing inappropriate is advertised.

"I had a tough enough time explaining to my son what Cialis was during the Super Bowl,” he said.

Right now, before anything happens, the school committee has agreed to form a subcommittee to debate the issue. Nero has offered to be a member of that subcommittee. Both Traficante and Nero would like to see these restrictions relaxed.

“I’m sure there’s other opportunities educationally where they have missed out,” said Traficante.

The City also has a policy banning advertisements on its public fields.

During the summer of 2009, Cranston’s parks and recreation director Anthony Liberatore was approached by a company who offered to install a $250,000 scoreboard at the football field free of charge if they could collect advertising revenue, said Traficante. That deal was shot down by the City Council due to the city’s policy.  The scoreboard, said Traficante, was “about as good as you could get for a high school.”