By Kara Shire
Valley Times

Sept. 15, 2000

With eyes often bigger than their budgets, school districts have become prime targets for advertisers eager to get in on a captive student audience in exchange for sponsorships and free equipment.

Schools in the East Bay and across the country are signing onto commercial deals, agreeing to everything from exclusive soda contracts to football scoreboard ads and free notebooks sporting corporate logos, with little oversight or consistency, Congressional investigators report.

"The effort of trying to market to children while they're in school and trying to promote products to children while they're in school is increasing," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, one of two congressmen to request the General Accounting Office report.

"This is an emerging, but fast-growing effort because young people have an awful lot of money to spend."

The federal report didn't offer any suggestions or calls for reform, but pointed out the vast differences in how schools deal with advertisements and said the lack of guidelines leaves many decisions to be made ad hoc.

The report cites one Colorado district administrator who sent a letter urging principals to allow students virtually unlimited access to Coke machines and to consider allowing drinks in classrooms to increase sales and therefore profits to the school. California is one of just 19 states to have any laws regulating commercialism in schools, and one of only five states to have what federal investigators called "comprehensive" laws on the books.

School boards here are allowed to enter into exclusive soda contracts and can grant exclusive electronic advertising contracts.

But California law prohibits schools from using textbooks and other instructional materials that use excessive brand name exposure -- some new math books, for example, teach fractions through counting M&Ms and have students figure out how much money they need to save to buy a pair of Nike shoes.

Still, advertising in area schools is rampant, and the lucrative offers are only just beginning to roll in.

"We're confronted all the time with people wanting to give us all sorts of interesting things," said Bob Bronzan, deputy superintendent of the Livermore school district. "In each case we have to consider what we're getting out of the deal, and what the cost would be to get this if we didn't have the advertising."

From Richmond to Dublin, schools have long contracted with fast-food restaurants, such as Wendy's, Taco Bell and Little Caesar's, to help manage the lunch-time crush. Coca-Cola and Pepsi machines aren't new to campuses either, but what is, said Andrew Hagelshaw of the Oakland-based Center for Commercial-Free Public Education, is the nature of the advertisements.

"Commercialism in schools is not new, but what's changed in the last 10 years is the level of aggressiveness," he said.

Hagelshaw, executive director of the Oakland-based organization. Revenue generated from soft drink contracts varies. The Oakland school board this week turned down an $ 11 million exclusive contract with Pepsi, while schools across the country report earning anywhere from $ 12 a year to $ 67,000 in up-front payments.

At Antioch High School, the stakes are lower, but school Principal Jeff Reich still welcomes his school's five-year, $ 50,000 Coca-Cola contract.

"As long as the school benefits from the deal, I think it's OK," Reich said. "And it's not like there's a Coke sign hanging all over the place. I think the only place on campus where there's a Coke sign is on the stadium scoreboard."

Soda contracts are the most common commercial deal in schools, yet they remain largely non- controversial, federal investigators said in the report.

"One school board member told us that exclusive soft drink agreements had been in his district since the 1950s, and the only difference between then and now was that the schools have learned to make money from them," the report statessaid.

But commercialism is reaching beyond the limits of food machines and school cafeterias and to find its way into the classroom.

ZapMe! is one of the latest in school advertising moguls, and is shaping up to be as controversial as Channel One, a 10-minute in-the-classroom news show that offers two minutes of commercial time in exchange for free audio visual equipment for the schools.

ZapMe!, a San Ramon-based marketer of broad-band Internet access, gives schools up to 15 free computers with 17-inch monitors, a high-speed Internet connection and a printer -- but with a catch. The computers show constant on-screen ads, and schools have to use them an average of four hours each school day in order to keep the equipment.

Bob Stern, a publicist for ZapMe!, said a little extra Wweb advertising is a small price for public schools to pay for its services.

"Students can do research, get help with their homework, teachers can use it as a classroom resource and even keep a grade book on-line with secure access for students and their parents . . . and it's free," Stern said.

Livermore's Junction Avenue Middle School recently joined the 1,800 schools nationwide to sign on with ZapMe!, and Bronzan said other schools in the district are considering signing up, too.

Officials at sSchools hungry for money say it can be hard to turn down the advertising deals.

"If a corporation offered to pay for an additional teacher in exchange for passing out T-shirts at the school, I'd be listening real hard," said Michael Roth, superintendent of the John Swett school district in west Contra Costa County.

While commercialism has grown to be a common presence on school campuses, not all districts are willing to sign on the dotted line.

The Moraga school board discourages commercial activities at its schools. And the Walnut Creek school district has a 1998-approved policy that bans "endorsing or appearing to endorse any private business, establishment, service or product over its competitors."

Even in Livermore, where advertisers have already infiltrated the classroom, district administrators remain hesitant.

"We're really not out there to push their products on kids," said Don Gatti, Livermore's assistant superintendent of business. "They get enough of that."