I didn't mean to imply that anyone in your group would offer advertisment to non-family friendly businesses. But was trying to say that the school board may need to tread on water here. I like Serendipity's advise. See if you can't get a contract with the businesses even if it's only for 3 - 6 months. Good luck!

Just a thought...Is it possible you could get the sponsors to sign on for the year so that the advertisements will not change from newsletter to newsletter? This way they could see and approve the sponsors and ads and know that they would not change over the year. This way it would not be an ongoing thing that changes every month.

Thank you for all the objective advise. I've looked at this issue from both sides and can see why this may be of concern to the school board. I guess that the PTO should put together some guidelines/policies that will protect us from having to advertise with businesses that aren't "child friendly". I know that when I was soliciting sponsors, I stayed away from calling bars and such because of the nature of the business.
The spoke with the principal of the school and she didn't give me much of an idea as to why they are opposed to this idea. We are having "advertisers" listed on the magnets that will be going home with the kids and the school board is FINE with that, but because this is an "ongoing" thing, they disapprove. The principal sent an email to the board president so we could meet and discuss the issue. Apparently this was brought up during a recent board meeting because THREE of the board members (who are also business owners) received phone calls from me to sponsor the newsletter. I don't know if they just don't want to advertise and feel they may get less business if someone else in their business DOES advertise? I really don't know, just speculating at this point.
I'm going to prepare for the meeting I will have with the school board president... to plead our case because as I've mentioned in another thread, these "advertisers" are merely posting a business card in the newsletter and aren't SELLING anything. They are only "sponsoring" the newsletter by making a minimal donation to our PTO to help defray some of our printing costs.
Sorry for the long, drawn out message...

Keep the communication lines open. Try to work with them, there maybe unknown reasons for their concersens.

Let me play the devil's advocate here for a minute. What if your group decided to go with sponsors, and a company, an adult entertainment business for example, that would not be suitable for children decided that they wanted to advertise in your newsletter. No, they were not approached, but was trying to make waves and you turned them down. What a legal mess it could be. Sounds far fetch??? Yeah, but it could and does happen.

Not saying that you shouldn't persue your quest, but maybe the board needs strong guidelines.

Or maybe the board is just being a jerk, who knows. Find out why they will not let you do this.

It's after 3 a.m. and I should be in bed, but thatnks to not being able to sleep, sometimes I get wild ideas. Sorry for the typos.

Have you sat down witht he School Board and talked to them about this? I would rather have everything out and know what their thoughts are and what you are hoping to do with this idea before becoming too upset.

I hate nothing more than months of planning and filling out Activity Requests FOrms, mettings, meetings, and MORE meetings only to have an idea at the last minute knocked down become someone didn;t like it and NO reason or care .

We have it in our by-laws that we are asked to work with the school's Admin and now with a parent seated School BOard, we are working to do the same BUT communication is key!

They do and don't have authority over you, if your group chooses to meet outside of school, hold events off school grounds , get you info hoem without going through the students then you can do want you want.
Realistically they can make your life a living hell...our bylaws actually say that we will not go against the policies or rules of our school district or school.
I am curious why they don't like the sponsorship thing,but know that it is a sticky situation when it comes to stuff like that and we try to stay away from it!