Social Media Policy for Students and Employees

Image Property of Matt Gasior and PowerDMS

This week’s blog post is based on the evaluation of school district social media policies for students and employees.  Times are changing in terms of how individuals interact with one another. We have gone from Morse coding a message to DMing (Direct Messaging) a person online.  It is important that we have policies and to make sure that we communicate in a responsible and respectable manner online. According to the blog post, Good Social Media Policy Protects Your School, by the Independent School Management (ISM) organization, school social media policies should be in place for students and employees due to how individuals communicate. The blog post also notes that the Nicolson Law Group, which it’s main law office is located Pennsylvania, suggests that schools need to teach students and parents the social ramifications and legal issues for improper use of the social media policy. I evaluated my school district’s, which is South Holland School District 151, policy along with Des Plaines School District 62 policy to see how they match up.

My school district’s policy is for the students but also incorporates rules employees should adhere to as well.  I did email the head of technology for my school district to see if there was a separate policy for staff  but, I did not get a response back.  Des Plaines has one policy set for the students and one for the employees. I can tell you that my school district’s policy is more in depth and in detail than both of Des Plaines’ policies. There are ten sections that make up my school district’s policy. The purpose of the policy gives readers an insight of what the policy is about and why the policy was created.  South Holland’s policy defines what is instituted as “technology” in the eyes of the school district.  Technology is not just based on hard and software.  Technology also relates to emails, online conferences, electronic files, internet access and social media.  The policy covers CIPA (Children’s Internet Protection Act) and RUP (Responsible Use Policy).  The RUP makes note that individuals should refer to the student’s/parent’s handbook for the RUP and the rules about social media. Within the RUP, this policy defines digital citizenship. Des Plaines’ student policy consists of a digital citizenship agreement with a list of nine rules followed by three short paragraphs about the purpose of the agreement and that parents should reference the student handbook for more information about this agreement. Des Plaines’ policy also has two paragraphs based on media release and how they take online privacy very seriously.  That is basically it for Des Plaines student policy.

The fifth item in South Holland’s policy is based on prohibited use.  This item in the policy is based on what seen as unacceptable in terms of electronic resources.  Some of the points that prohibited use covers are plagiarism, cyber bullying, accessing or communicating inappropriate materials; avoiding school filters, copyright laws, etc.  Des Plaines' staff policy only has a short list of items that are considered prohibited for use.  Some of these points are covered by South Holland’s policy.  Points six and seven of the policy are based on privacy.  This section of the policy describes what is deemed as property of the school district electronically such as school phones, sent emails and electronic resources, etc.  The school district has to right to go into your email to retrieve certain emails sent for FOIA purposes.  Both points also make sure that security measure are taken to protect passwords, email, system access and publicly posting images of students as long as permission is given and the student’s name is not posted online.

Des Plaines’ policy covers the same basics in their “data security” section of the policy.  Points eight and nine of South Holland’s policy dealt with damaged/liability and period of use of any technology equipment. Both polices from both school districts also have disclaimers.  Both policies have the same concept but South Holland’s policies have more detail and coverage like the rest of the policy examples list this week than Des Plaines.  I think that Des Plaines’ policy was straight to the point. I just think that their guidelines needed to be spelled out for legal purposes.

Image Property of Demco,Inc.

References

District 62 (IL) Digital Citizenship Agreement. Retrieved on January 23, 2019  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz-sDZyMN1ATZ2hlLUhLWEh4elE/view

District 62 (IL) Staff  Technology. Retrieved on January 23, 2019  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz-sDZyMN1ATZ2hlLUhLWEh4elE/view

ISM.(2013).Good Social Media Policy Protects Your School. Independent School Management. Vol. 10 No. 4. Retrieved on January 23, 2019 https://isminc.com/article/good-social-media-policy-protects-your-school

South Holland School District 151 Information Technology Student Technology Responsible Use Policy. Retrieved on January 23, 2019 http://www.shsd151.org/downloads/information_technology/student_technology_responsible_use_policy.pdf

South Holland School District 151 Student/Parent Handbook & Discipline Handbook. Retrieved on January 23, 2019   

http://www.shsd151.org/downloads/parents/2018_student-parent_discipline_handbook-1up.pdf (Pg. 55).