Putting billboards on school buses sounds like a simple matter.
Until you start thinking it through.
What’s the point?
A push for advertisements on the side of public school buses isn’t as simple as it seems.
The Bentonville School District has returned to an idea first pushed by Michael Poore, the former superintendent who helped convince state Rep. Dan Douglas to get state legislation passed authorizing school boards to take up the practice.
Poore has moved on to be superintendent of Little Rock Schools and his idea never gained the support of the local school board. But it's back, having been slightly modified to make putting signs on the sides of big yellow buses more palatable.
This time school administrators say the signs wouldn't be direct advertisements, but content from the school district "sponsored" by businesses.
"We'll have a district initiative on the biggest part of the space and a company can just sponsor the message," district Finance Director Janet Schwanhausser said. "So you won't see an advertisement for chicken nuggets going down the road."
At a recent school board meeting, a mock-up included the message "If you see something, say something." In the corner was a mocked-up company logo.
It's a new tactic to make people more comfortable with bus-side ads. It's not unlike the never-ending efforts of the casino industry to legalize casino gambling in Arkansas. This year, the casino proposal would raise money for Arkansas' highways, which supporters obviously hope will be an enticement for voters sick and tired of ill-maintained interstates and state roads. The basic idea is the same, but its form just might create a little less resistance.
The Bentonville district has tossed around six-figure potential windfalls from placement of ads on buses. A couple of years ago, Schwanhausser said, estimates were $100,000 to $150,000 a year and up to $450,000 annually by year five.
Call us skeptical. Undoubtedly, the district can make some money by slapping ads on student transportation, just like it does with targeted advertising in its stadiums that kids see every day. But such large sums seem a tall order, especially if the ad buyers only get small mention as an advocate of a public service message.
But maybe it's more lucrative than we imagine. After all, advertisers would get moving billboards that travel the same routes each day and have a built-in audience of students who ride the buses or see them as they drop kids off at school. Advertisers also would get to appear supportive of local public schools and their messages.
Bentonville isn't the first to consider such a change. It's not even the first in Arkansas. Across the country, school district officials can easily and convincingly explain why they're interested: Costs are going up, taxpayers demand decision-makers pursue all other avenues before higher taxes, funding from state and federal governments aren't sufficient for local education. Lawmakers are more than happy to give school districts the power to sell as a means to boost revenue because that's money the lawmakers don't have to find for school districts.
Just as the practice has drawn supporters, it's also drawn critics. A group called the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood resists the practice of further commercialization of schools. They argue the revenue hardly makes a dent in school needs while intensifying the presence of advertising messages surrounding children.
In 2017, Bentonville Superintendent Debbie Jones said administrators recognized limited potential for what the signs would raise and had concerns the advertising would distract drivers. School districts have long preached of the need for safety when it comes to school zones and school buses, so adding distractions for drivers does seem to run counter to that.
And yet the idea is back.
In our editorial board's discussions, the first thought was bus ads aren't any more damaging or manipulative than all those ads in the football stadiums or basketball courts. Yet the discussion quickly turned to how complicated it is to balance appropriate sponsorships with district and community values, and with constitutional protections. Obviously (we hope), obscenities, gambling, tobacco and alcoholic beverages would be off limits. Nobody wants to see "Don't text and drive," sponsored by the American Association of Liquor Retailers.
Would religious institutions get to sponsor the district's public service messages? If a baker's religious freedom is to be protected in the selling of cakes, are places of worship due protection when it comes to a public bus ad program other organizations -- whether it's chiropractors, attorneys who specialize in traffic accidents or the local skating rink -- have access to? And if the Baptists get to sponsor a message, why not the Wiccans?
We would assume the local gun and pawn shop wouldn't be eligible for the district ad program, but should we?
We're reminded of the circumstances years ago in Arkansas and other states involving creation of adopt-a-highway beautification programs in which organizations could sponsor cleanups along stretches of highways. In return, the state would erect small signs announcing which organization was responsible for the benevolence.
Sounds innocent enough, right? Well, you might be able to pull the cotton sheets over the eyes of the Ku Klux Klan, but not the wool. The racist organization got the idea they had every bit as much right to adopt a piece of public highway as any other American organization. And the courts, in cases centered on free speech issues, ruled in their favor.
We don't know whether such conflicts would come into play with school bus ads. We know that's nobody's intent. But we're also talking about a taxpayer-purchased vehicle -- the school bus -- being used to carry a message that promotes a business or organization. The fact that everyone's taxes pay for those buses makes it a different kind of vehicle. And once one starts excluding certain organizations from advertising on the side of a public vehicle, it has plenty of potential to get dicey in the constitutional free speech arena.
Then one has to wonder how much a district can pay in attorneys fees before the dollars earned from the program start to look insignificant.
It's been done elsewhere. So maybe bus ads will work here and generate a bit of revenue. Of course, cities' bans on panhandlers worked for a long time, too, and that fell apart once someone decided to litigate the issue. We're just saying the issue of school bus advertisements isn't as simple as one might think. Indeed, it can get complex pretty easily.
It would be nice to live in a state that values public education so much that school districts don't have spend time developing money-making schemes not core to their educational missions.
We don't live in that state.
Commentary on 03/23/2018