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Press of Atlantic City ‘Christie signs state law allowing ads on school buses’
NY Times ‘Christie Signs Tougher Law on Bullying in Schools’
Press of AtlanticCity ‘Christie signs state law allowing ads on school buses’
Posted: Thursday, January 6, 2011 7:32 pm | Updated: 7:34 pm, Thu Jan 6, 2011.
Christie signs state law allowing ads on school buses By DIANE D'AMICO Education Writer pressofAtlanticCity.com | 0 comments
Gov. Chris Christie enacted a law Thursday allowing advertisements on school buses.
The bill allows municipal boards of education to contract for advertising space on buses that they own or lease, so the law would not affect districts that contract with private bus companies. The law does not allow private companies to put ads on their buses.
It will be several months before local boards will know exactly what size and type of advertising they can solicit.
Locally, large districts such as Egg Harbor Township and Vineland are among those that could consider advertising. EHT transportation coordinator Warren Fipp said Thursday he expects the school board to discuss the issue. He is waiting to see how state regulations would limit the size and location of the ads, and if ads on buses have had any impact in other states.
Fipp has previously said that he could understand how school boards might want to consider ads, especially if gas prices continued to rise. Under the law, 50 percent of the revenue from the ads would have to be used to offset fuel costs, with the rest going for other district programs. But Fipp said he also has concerns about the ads distracting drivers.
Currently about a half-dozen states allow ads on school buses, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Tennessee and Texas.
The advertising has been opposed nationally by the Committee for a Commercial Free Childhood, which charges that they exploit a captive audience of children who are particularly vulnerable to marketing's harmful effects.
The New Jersey law prohibits advertising for tobacco or alcohol products or for political advocacy. The state Board of Education also may establish other restrictions, and local boards must approve all ads on their buses.
Legislators who sponsored the bill said they wanted to give local boards another source of revenue.
"With other states generating as much as $1,000 per bus, this law is designed to increase revenue for school districts to provide needed services," said Assemblywoman Connie Wagner, D-Bergen, a primary sponsor of the bill.
The bill's co-sponsor, Assemblywoman Joan Voss, D-Bergen, said given the state's current fiscal crisis, any mechanism that may increase a school district's revenue without hurting the children's education should be explored.
Districts already are working on their 2011-12 budgets, but will not be able to count on school bus revenue right away.
Under the law, the state Board of Education still must establish and approve specific regulations on the size and type of advertising that will be allowed, a process that typically takes several months.
Contact Diane D'Amico:
609-272-7241
NY Times ‘Christie Signs Tougher Law on Bullying in Schools’
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
The law spells out a long list of requirements, including the appointment of specific people in each school and district to run antibullying programs; the investigation of any episodes starting within a day after they occur; and training for teachers, administrators and school board members. Superintendents must make public reports twice a year detailing any episodes in each school, and each school will receive a letter grade to be posted on its Web site.
The law, which goes into effect at the start of the next school year, lists harassment, intimidation or bullying as grounds for suspension or even expulsion from school. It applies to public schools, and portions of it apply to public colleges.
A bill had been in the works since 2009, but it gained momentum last fall. It passed both houses of the Legislature on Nov. 22, with just one dissenting vote, and Gov. Chris Christie signed it into law on Thursday. The New Jersey School Boards Association endorsed the law, concluding that schools could largely carry it out with existing resources.
“This is one of the great civil rights laws in New Jersey history, and to have a fairly conservative Republican governor sign it sends a resounding signal to other states,” said Steven Goldstein, chairman and chief executive of Garden State Equality, a gay rights group, who was involved in drafting the law. “It’s also a major achievement for bipartisan governance in New Jersey.”
On Sept. 22, Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge; three days earlier, officials have said, his roommate surreptitiously streamed video of him in an intimate encounter with another man. While it remains unclear what role the video may have played in Mr. Clementi’s suicide, news coverage of the episode gave added impetus to efforts to enact laws against bullying and harassment.
“No question, that tragedy and a string of other suicides in the fall by school kids gave it momentum,” said State Senator Barbara Buono, Democrat of Middlesex County, a prime sponsor of the bill. “The idea is just to make the climate of school one of tolerance and respect.”
Forty-five states have laws against bullying, and New Jersey has had one since 2002, including a 2007 amendment covering cyberbullying. New Jersey becomes the fifth state to adopt a new law in the past year; New York was among the others.
“Other states have bits and pieces of what this New Jersey law has, but none of them is as broad, getting to this level of detail, and requiring them, step by step, to do the right thing for students,” said Sarah Warbelow, state legislative director at the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group. Many states, she said, do not even offer the protections of the 2002 New Jersey law, which made it a crime to bully or harass on the basis of race, sex, sexual and gender identity or disability.
