Twin Rivers Looking To Advertise At School Sites

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - One local school district is so desperate for money, officials are looking at turning their schools into billboards.

Quite simply the school district, Twin Rivers Unified, says it needs to get creative because of the need for money.

"We're looking for other options, other opportunities to generate some revenue," said district spokesman Tom Janis.

With close to $100 million slashed from its budget in the last four years, the school district is now jumping on the advertising band wagon.

"The advertisements will be something appropriate," Janis said. "The district has the final say on what that would be."

Janis says while the corporate ads would be subtle, even having things like report cards sponsored isn't off the table.

"Is the opportunity and the potential there? Yes," he said.

Parent Yolanda Delgado has seen the schools lose funding and says she is fine with the ads.

"Desperate times calls for desperate measures," she said. "If it's going to benefit the school and the kids and it's gonna bring in money, then yes. I'm sure they'll do it tastefully."

But while some say outside school buses are one thing, ads in schools is quite another.

"Who's going to be advertising, you know, what company? Some people might be against the company," retired teacher Elizabeth Turk said.

Janis says the campaigns will be pitched one at a time to the district from a for-profit company, and education will stay the distirct's top priority..

"We don't want the advertisement to be a distraction," he said. "We wouldn't want kids to walk down the hallways and see giant blinking lights, that sort of thing."
The ads could start popping up at district schools as soon as the start of next school year.

While it's not known how much the ads could bring in, the San Juan school district has a similar deal with the company called Education Funding Partners. So far they've made $75,000 by putting in sponsored hand sanitizers in their schools.