Peabody, MA Schools Look to Sell Ad Space Including Pizza & Ice Cream on School Communications … Does Michelle Obama Know?

Peabody, Massachusetts parents coming soon to a mail box near you from the Peabody school system … a childs suspension notification sponsored by Paul’s Tire and Care care.

That is correct, cash strapped Peabody is looking for different revenue streams in these difficult economic times. They are thinking about ads from local pizza and ice cream shops. HOLD THE PHONE! Pizza and ice cream shops on ads on public school communications for children? DOES MICHELLE OBAMA KNOW ABOUT THIS! Have the Peabody officials got Michelle Obama’s blessing for marketing items to kids that go against her obesity campaign and what big government and the nanny state feels should be allowed for children to eat?

But ads for local ice cream shops or hair salons could soon be appearing on permission slips, class calendars, and school notices sent home with Peabody elementary school students after a unanimous School Committee vote this week.

The novel plan to sell ad space on school communications marks the latest twist in how commercialization of schools — from the sale of billboard space to ads on buses — is generating cash in lean times.

The ads, possibly the first of their kind in Massachusetts, “will have to be age-appropriate, but we’re thinking about ads from local pizza and ice cream shops, dance and karate schools, maybe from a florist or a college,’’ said Superintendent C. Milton Burnett. The initial program aims to earn at most $24,000.

School officials plan to send letters in coming days to solicit ads from more than 500 members of the city’s Chamber of Commerce. They expect advertisers to pay $300 to run ads on some 10,000 sheets of paper in one elementary school. If a business wants to run ads for all elementary schools in the district, the cost will be $2,000.