Citizens’ Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools

3724 Burke Ave. N.

Seattle WA 98103

October 10, 2001

Mr. Don Nielsen, President
Board of Directors
Seattle Public Schools

Dear Mr. Nielsen:

We, the undersigned current and former elected officials, join with the Citizens’ Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools in urging you to adopt the strongest possible policy to protect Seattle’s children from commercial influences at school.

We place these 47,000 children in your care in order to receive the best education possible given our current resources. It is inappropriate to expose them to commercial influences as part of the price of becoming educated citizens in our city.

Our schools deserve the support of our business community, and that support deserves recognition by parents, teachers and other adults. Recognition of ‘corporate sponsors’ must not, however, be an excuse to expose children to corporate logos at school. The logos themselves are a form of advertising; thus, using the school system to deliver corporate images to children is an inappropriate use of public funds and facilities.

We applaud you for protecting the integrity of the learning environment with this long-awaited policy, and trust that you will correctly include logos with other forms of advertising which may not be directed at our children.

Respectfully,