I have very little recollection of advertising in any school before high school. The only exception would be the book fair, which Betsy covered already (I agree that it is a "pester power" machine).
In high school, I recall the band selling candy (leave it to the band to corrupt our community ;) ), which Lindsey admitted to doing herself. Other than that, the only thing I can think of is the Coke and Powerade (which is owned by Coke) machines. The interesting part is that they were not available during the school day. They were located in a breezeway between the main gym and the little "back gym," where the training room was also located. However, this breezeway would remained locked through the school day, leaving only one access point between the gyms. After the official school day was over, the breezeway would be unlocked. Therefore, the only people using it were athletes, some of the after school clubs, and faculty members. I don't know what the official line is, but I think the lack of access during the school day makes a major difference. I don't think that, correct or not, anyone would dispute that after school and during school activities fall under different philosophies.
I may be wrong, but after I graduated I think they went to having the machines be accessible all day. They were not making enough money with the current strategy, so they could either remove them or maximize profits on them. Of course, they went with the latter.
Unfortunately, I had to admit that I did sell candy for cheerleading. I am not sure if they still do that because I heard that the cheerleaders switched to fruit the year after I left but had no success. It would be interesting to see what they are selling and advertising now.
ReplyDeleteAlso, do you think that the book fair is necessarily a bad thing? I remember going to a few book fairs and most parents thought it was a positive aspect to education. What do you think?
Interesting that they made the switch to fruit. FFA at Floyd County High School does the same thing during the Fall semester, but it's totally outweighed by the FBLA and band selling junk food for a dollar per bar. Candy is easier to carry around and sell during school hours. Fruit is heavy and a pain to transport, so I imagine most schools don't bother. Pity.
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