Schools Consider Advertisers On Web Sites
Source: USA Today
School districts across the country are facing budget cuts, so, in an effort to raise revenues the are reportedly now considering placing advertisements on their Web sites.
School districts in Virginia and Arizona already have ads on their official sites, while officials at districts in South Dakota, Wisconsin and California say they are planning to place ads soon.
“Because of the economy, districts are just desperately looking for any source of revenue they can get their hands on,” says Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators.
“This is really tricky stuff for school districts, though,” says Richard Colvin, director of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Columbia University in New York. “They have to be very careful about the image that they’re projecting.”
The 130,000-student San Diego Unified School District has lost about 25% of its revenue in the past three years because of state budget cuts, says chief district relations officer Bernie Rhinerson.
Officials there are developing a plan they believe could generate at least $100,000 annually by selling ads, he says. “I would like to attract advertisers that have an educational message,” Rhinerson says, adding that National Geographic could be an example of that. Susan Linn, a Harvard Medical School psychologist and director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, says “when schools start allowing commercialism, the students really suffer.”
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School districts of course would have to be very cautious about who they allow to advertize because if they also were to perhaps work with a small business lender in order to generate additional income, the messages on the ads could not violate district policy in anyway. Getting a small business loan to fund upgrades for Web site management might be an option too.
Advertisers should also do their best to boost visibility. The best way to do that is to enlist the help of an SEO services company. These Seo company providers work with advertisers to get their placement high up on Google and other online search engines for optimized search results.
In Arizona, the state Legislature in January approved schools having ads on their Web sites. The 33,000-student Paradise Valley Unified School District in the Phoenix area plans to have online ads by summer, says spokeswoman Judi Willis.
Gilbert Public Schools, outside Phoenix, already has ads on its Web sites. Mercy Gilbert Medical Center decided to advertise to help out the local schools and to reach a target audience of Gilbert residents, says spokeswoman Julie Graham.
In Virginia’s 76,000-student Prince William County Public Schools, school Web sites include clickable business logos that take visitors to their Web sites.
“It’s not gaudy and it’s done in a manner consistent with our school system philosophy,” spokesman Ken Blackstone says. The district began Web ads in fall 2008, and met its goal of raising $75,000 in the first year of advertising, he says.
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My Take: There are so many stories out there right now about how many teachers are being laid off from their jobs, cuts in spending, and of course the swelling classroom sizes that make it harder and harder for our kids to get a quality education. If the schools need to raise money, I say let them do it anyway possible, whether it’s selling Scentsy products or graphic tees for extra money, or having students to do a weekly car wash, or even a silent auction. Kids could even draw their own T shirt designs and have the shirts made and then sell them. Those drawings and designs would probably be a big hit with parents and other students.
By the way, if you don’t know what Scentsy candles are, those are the fabulous wickless candles you can buy. They smell great, they look great and they don’t have wick that you have to worry about burning down or replacing.
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