Colorado school districts have been allowed to pursue external school bus advertising campaigns as potential revenue streams to fight budget cuts since the early 1990s. A system 45 miles north of Denver tried it once before with disappointing results but is giving the program another shot.

Thompson School District is located in Loveland just south of Fort Collins and along the state's front range of the Rocky Mountains. Following in the footsteps of trailblazer Colorado Springs School District No. 11, which successfully lobbied the state to add 2251-R-63.08 to its minimum standards for school transportation vehicles in 1993 to allow and regulate school bus ads. Thompson ran an initial program from 2005 through 2010. But the revenue wasn't what Nansi Crom thought it would be.

The transportation director said revenue was only about $3,000 per year for the entire fleet of 103 school buses, which she attributed to the small size of ads that were allowed at the time by the school board. The ads could only be 12 inches tall while running a length of 36 inches, and the ads had to be placed above the window drip line.

When the contract concluded two years ago, Crom and her transportation department staff began looking for ways to tweak the program. The initial idea included participation of local high school business and design programs that would allow the students to solicit the ads from area business and develop the concepts. But logistics were difficult and district resources limited. A turn-key solution was sought that would not unnecessarily eat up employee time or vehicle availability.

The result was a contract with a media company in the Denver area to sell advertising to local companies that want to target messages on any of the districts 70 bus routes. In all, Thompson school buses cover a 580-square-mile service area, which includes suburban and rural areas, alike, including the highways that run along the Rocky Mountain foothills. The company handles all aspects of the advertising, including a sub-contract with a local design firm to create and install the ads during off-hours.

The school board approved larger ads up to 40 inches tall and 6 feet long, which increases the visibility of the new ads on the buses. Ads will also be placed on the district's white fleet vehicles, including wrapper ads on hybrid cars used for transporting administrative staff.

"We’re excited that this will really increase revenues," Crom said, estimating that the district could raise at least $10,000 per year fleet-wide. "We think that will be more attractive to local companies and a more effective display of ads."

While she said parental and taxpayer feedback had so far been "neutral," industry opposition to school bus advertising has centered on safety concerns as the ads could serve as potential distractions to other motorists. The Florida Association for Pupil Transportation, which opposes school bus advertising, stated in a position paper published in January that as of yet there are no credible statistics showing how school bus advertising could lead to additional road hazards. Still, FAPT said the safety concerns outweigh any financial benefits.

"I have yet to see any statistics that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that accidents involving school buses have been attributed directly to advertising being displayed directly on buses," said Crom.

She also said the district only approves self-adhesive ad banners on the sides of school buses rather than the aluminum-framed billboards erected on many municipal buses to keep children from being snagged. Also, per approval by the district's communications department, ad messaging must promote family values and "uphold ethics of the district" by not promoting fast food, alcohol or tobacco.

"It’s just a growing movement throughout the United States that public school districts, anyway, are forced to seek revenue streams wherever they can find them," Crom said. "If they can do them in a true turn-key manner that doesn’t cause the district to expend funds to make revenue, it behooves us as stewards of the taxpayer’s dollars to see where those opportunities are."

Bruce Little, the transportation director at the Colorado Department of Education, added that those opportunties could be better alternatives to reducing student ridership because of route cuts tied to budget deficits. He added that he knew of no school bus crashes or other incidents in the state tied to school bus ads since the regulation was amended in 1993. The Department of Education also consulted with Denver Public Transit in the early 1990s and discovered that there were also no records of crashes involving transit buses with ads.