Bill Introduced to Ban School Bus Ads
Robert Kittle
News Channel 7
February 5, 2008
Reacting to recent news coverage, state senator Greg
Ryberg, R-Aiken, introduced a bill Tuesday in the Senate
to ban ads on public school buses.
The state Department of Education has entered into a
contract with an advertising agency to allow local
school districts to put print ads inside school buses,
above the windows. The districts and state would split
the proceeds, and it's up to each district to decide
whether to participate.
Sen. Ryberg says schools should be concentrating on
improving academics, not subjecting a captive audience
of children to ads for junk food.
"I don't know what they were thinking about, okay. Here
we are, we're taking vending machines out of schools, or
we're telling people what they can put in vending
machines, and we haven't put any parameters on the type
of ads that they could put inside of a school bus? This
is bizarre," he says.
The contract does prohibit ads for alcohol, tobacco or
anything that promotes illicit behavior.
The bill was assigned to a Senate committee for debate.