IS YOUR DISTRICT SAFE ONLINE?

Limit the downsides and liability of social media by establishing critical guidelines

By Jennifer Snelling

An active social media presence has some obvious benefits for school districts. It can provide an avenue to promote school board meetings and other official events. Individual schools can put out a call for volunteers. And librarians can get kids reading with a fun TikTok video. At its best, social media connects school districts to staff, students, families and the surrounding community.

But social media also presents challenges for districts and schools. A parent or community member can use the district account’s comment section to spread rumors or disinformation. Teachers can unwittingly post a picture of a student whose parent has not given permission. And, in the very real case of a cheerleader who posted inappropriate comments on her social media, the Supreme Court got involved.

The National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) recently issued a report on schools and social media. The report found that 59% of schools have dealt with accounts that harass, intimidate or bully students; 51% have dealt with mock or impersonation accounts appearing with their logos or branding; and 45% have dealt with social media platforms not removing reported accounts/posts that harass, intimidate or bully their students.

While that’s a lot of frustration and potential harm, it is possible to see the benefits of social media – while limiting the downsides – by following some guidelines, says Gretchen Shipley, managing partner in F3’s San Diego office and chair of the firm’s eMatters Practice Group.

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IS YOUR DISTRICT SAFE ONLINE?

“The hard part is that there are five different groups of social media users within school districts, and they have five different sets of rules,” says Shipley. “Overall, I call it social media management.”

Official social media accounts

The first category is official social media accounts. These may include an account for the school district and one for each school site. Accounts run by teachers, librarians or school clubs with permission of the administration also fall into this category. That’s a lot to keep up with.

The first step, says Shipley, is to account for every official account associated with each school. Know who administers each account and insist that someone on staff can administrate content.

“The school has a duty to monitor and respond if there’s anything inappropriate,” says Shipley. “To me, it makes sense that they would have a clear accounting of any accounts associated with the school and clear guidelines for those accounts to follow.”

For instance, the administrator may only post images, videos or other student information if the district has provided notice that the image may be used in this way and the parent has not opted out. Schools should review the annual FERPA notice and update it to include sharing information on the school website or social media. In addition, Shipley suggests reviewing and updating procedures for communicating to teachers that students’ parents have opted out.

The communications department runs San Juan Unified District’s official social media accounts, says Trent Allen, communications chief of staff. “Our teams post content and respond to questions and comments,” he says. “We try to keep to a single district presence instead of every department.”

San Juan’s school sites are not required to have a social media presence, but many do. These sites can be run by a staff member or volunteer, but the district asks that the sites are supervised by the principal of the school site.

“This is just in case there are any issues, the site leader can take care of them when they arise,” says Allen.

TikTok and other platforms help educators and librarians find inspiration and be more creative with their lessons. Recent restrictions on TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance, as well as other issues arising from social media platforms, are reminders that chief business officials can require education for staff and school board members.

Guidelines, education and accounting will not solve all the potential problems. Imagine receiving 226 identical critical comments on your social media page in 10 minutes and not being able to delete the comments or block the poster. That’s what happened to two school board members who invited the public to engage on their social media pages on school district matters.

In a decision in Garnier v. O’ConnerRatcliff, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that two school board members violated the First Amendment rights of two individual parents when they deleted and hid their comments and blocked them from further posting on their social media pages.

Shipley explains, “When a school board member discusses district business and asks the public to comment, they are creating a Constitutionally protected free speech forum from which they cannot block or remove comments or posters they disagree with.”

According to Shipley, here are some things that a district or board member may do to avoid this situation:

• Turn off site comments features altogether.

• Avoid engaging the public in discussions on matters concerning district business.

• Set explicit decorum standards and expectations on the social media page, including a prohibition on profanity or threats.

• For board members, include a disclaimer that they are not posting on behalf of the district and not intending to create a public forum for school board business.