CITIZENS’ CAMPAIGN FOR COMMERCIAL-FREE SCHOOLS
3724 Burke Ave. N. Seattle WA 98103
www.scn.org/cccs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
September 2, 2000
CONTACT:
CITIZENS TO DEMAND COMMERCIAL-FREE SCHOOLS
-- 7 PM, Wednesday, Sept. 6 --
SEATTLE, WA – On Wednesday, Sept. 6, the Citizens’ Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools (CCCS) will show up at the first school board meeting of the school year to demand that the Seattle School Board adopt a commercial-free schools policy. CCCS is a local grassroots group of parents, teachers and other citizens who want to get advertising out of the public schools. The meeting will be held at 7 PM at the A&S Center at 815 4th Ave. N. and is open to the public.
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The School District seems to have a de facto policy of advertising in schools even to children in primary grades," says Deborah Niedermeyer, parent of a first-grader at the new Stanford International School. "This situation is not innocuous; these young children are very vulnerable to manipulation by advertisers." Niedermeyer and her husband Brian Allen are especially concerned with any contract that would expose children to Internet banner ads. They will request that their child not participate in school computer activities in which he would be exposed to the ads.In January 2000, the Seattle School District signed an agreement with N2H2 to provide Internet filtering services. In April, the district joined the N2H2 ‘partner’ program whereby N2H2 provided computer hardware valued at $13,990 in exchange for District promises to encourage student use of the N2H2 search engine. The District agreed to accept all web pages that include commercial messages. Not only does the agreement give permission to place banner ads on all Websites accessed by students at school (including student- and teacher-made web pages), it also allows N2H2 to collect data from students’ online sessions on a continual basis. There was no public input on this new Internet policy.
The deal with N2H2 is the latest in a recent trend to commercialize the Seattle Public Schools, which began in the early 1990s with Channel One, a commercial TV program still shown daily in 10 Seattle schools. The trend accelerated under the administrative leadership of Joseph Olchefske, a former investment banker who has since become Superintendent of Public Schools. In 1996, Olchefske proposed selling advertising space on school walls, a policy later rescinded after a storm of public protest. Last year, the district signed an exclusive, 5-year contract with Coca-Cola Corporation.
"Public schools are public property, and using them to increase corporate profits is a mishandling of public funds," says David Wall, President of CCCS and parent of two children in the schools. "This is exploitation of children, pure and simple."
For more information, contact CCCS at 206.726.4142, or at
www.scn.org/cccs.