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West Chester School District Considers In-School Ads Aimed at Students

By Brad Segall

WEST CHESTER, Pa. (CBS) -- Another suburban Philadelphia school district is looking at a plan that would allow advertising inside the district's schools as a way to generate badly needed revenue (see related stories).

The West Chester school board is expected to vote Monday night to move forward with a recommendation that the district look into selling advertisements that would be allowed in schools.  If approved, a committee would be formed to write a policy that would set guidelines on what kinds of ads would be allowed.

Dr. Jim Scanlon, superintendent of schools, says districts need to get creative as the funding dollars shrink.

"It's tighter budgets -- there's limited dollars," he tells KYW Newsradio.  "The tax dollars aren't quite there as they used to be, and if we're going to continue to keep and maintain programs, we have to look for alternative revenue sources."

As long as the ads are "positive," he says, he doesn't believe they will be detrimental to the students:

"Positive advertisements would be things like colleges or universities, promoting healthy eating.  We don't want to have ads that are negative in nature or are going to be detrimental and disruptive to the educational environment."

In the first year, Scanlon adds, they project anywhere between $22,000 and $55,000 in revenue, but they believe that could jump to as much as $400,000 in the fourth year.  He thinks they could start selling ads as soon as this coming May.

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