Walking through campus during their passing period, students often spot numerous eye-catching posters plastered throughout the walls, advertising topics from spirit weeks to drug awareness to candidacies for various leadership positions.
However, before students can display posters around school, they must get approval from assistant principal and activities director Kristen Cunningham. Typically, students will email the draft of their poster to Cunningham for approval.
Sophomore Jena Lew, one of the candidates who ran for and won ASB secretary for the 2024-25 school year, sent over a copy of her candidate poster to Cunningham before she advertised them on school grounds. Then, once she received a confirmation email and received feedback from her peers, she started putting up her posters and advertising her campaign on Instagram through posts and videos.
“You’re putting yourself out there a lot,” Lew said. “But when people see it [the posters], they definitely think it’s captivating and it shows an aspect of creativity from your point of view, so it’s really unique to each person.”
If administrators ever see an inappropriate poster on campus, they will simply take it down. Administrators, like Cunningham and assistant principal Matthew Torrens, use their judgment to determine whether a poster is appropriate, although Cunningham says she rarely needs to take a poster down.
If a poster is put up by an ASB club, little stands in the way of it being approved. However, if a private group wants to advertise an event for profit — such as a tutoring center or a tournament that costs money to enter — it cannot be advertised on campus.
“ASB should be aware of it [any activity that goes on at the school],” Torrens said, “They should be monitoring that it’s legal, that they’re not discriminating against any targeted group.”
Torrens has had his fair share of dealing with inappropriate posters being put up.
“Two years ago, the boys water polo team had someone on the team wear nothing but their Speedo and they put the [water polo] ball right over their lower parts and it looked like they were naked. It said ‘Come out to the boys water polo match’,” Torrens said, “So yes, it’s a school [event], but it’s not appropriate.”
While there is no limit to the number of posters a student can put up, Cunningham notes that the one possible limit to putting up posters is the cost: Printing costs depend on the use of color and size. If clubs desire to print their posters using ASB’s all-color poster printer, they only get five posters for free before being charged for them.
In her time as activities director, Cunningham found that posters play an integral role in effectively promoting an event. Along with posters, advertising through social media and a mention in principal Greg Louie’s SHS Friday Letter have been the most effective.
“Those ways may vary from event to event, but we do find advertising in [those] three different ways is pretty effective,” Cunningham said.
