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Young people encounter commercialism in their schools everyday—from being forced to attend assemblies sponsored by Exxon or Prozac; to learning from text books that use M&M’s to teach important math concepts; to sitting in classrooms decorated with inspirational posters telling them to “Just Do It.” To address the problem, the Center has released Sample School Board Policies to help districts develop guidelines to keep advertisers out of public schools.

The initial announcement of the Center’s Sample School Policies coincided with the September 14,2000 release of the U.S. General Accounting Office’s 45-page report on commercialism in public schools. After visiting 19 schools and seven districts across the country, the federal study uncovered a broad range of commercialism in schools, and an absence of policy to guide the school administration.

“The GAO is confirming what our Center has known for years,” said Andrew Hagelshaw, Executive Director for the Center. “Brand name advertisers are disrupting the public school environment by using valuable time and space to push their prod-ucts on a captive audience of kids. School districts obviously need policies in place so that they can address the problem before it gets out of hand.”

The Center’s Sample School Policies were based upon existing anti-commercialism school policies from five US school districts. One district was San Francisco, which passed the “Commercial Free Schools Act” in 1999. The policies in San Francisco have proved successful, keeping a Pepsi Contract out of the district.

The Center’s Sample School Policies were devel-oped to assist child advocates, educators, parents and citizens in addressing the problems of commercial-ism in public schools before they get out of hand. Please contact the center by phoning 1.800. UNPLUG1, or log on to www.commercialfree.org, to receive your free copy of the Sample Policies.

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