A new policy will soon have Quaker Valley School District officials taking a closer look at their social media pages.
Designed to establish a process and standards for approval and operation of district-owned accounts, the proposed guidelines also address school directors’ and school employees’ personal social media.
The new policy was introduced at a school board committee meeting Oct. 29.
It is expected to be adopted at the board’s Nov. 25 voting session.
Proposed rules and regulations include:
• All district-owned social media accounts shall display the official name and logo of the district.
• School district social media accounts must remain professional and consistent with the educational mission of the school district at all times.
• School district administration may access, suspend, terminate and/or make changes to any school district social media account for any reason and without prior or subsequent notice to the operator.
• School district employees are not to use personal social media accounts to communicate privately with students concerning any school district business.
• One-on-one communication with a student concerning school district business shall be limited to the electronic resources provided or approved by the district such as email or classroom management applications.
• School district employees are urged to maintain strict professional boundaries on social media, and to protect against even the appearance of impropriety.
The policy also addresses comments from parents, students and others made on district social media pages and posts.
Content not permitted and subject to removal includes:
• Comments that are not related to the original topic/post.
• Profane, lewd, vulgar, obscene, violent or pornographic images, content and/or language.
• Content that promotes, fosters, or perpetuates harassment and/or discrimination of others based on race, creed, color, age, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or national origin and contains hate speech directed at a protected class of individuals.
• Comments in support of or in opposition to any political campaigns or ballot measures.
The policy is available for review at the district office and via BoardDocs on the district’s website, qvsd.org.
Assistant superintendent Andrew Surloff said the policy was carefully crafted with consideration of people’s First Amendment rights while balancing best practices for the district.
The district also pulled from the Pennsylvania School Boards Association’s social media guidelines.
“This particular version has undergone significant edit and input from (our solicitor’s law firm) GRB,” Surloff said. “This policy covers a lot of ground with regards to social media. There are a lot of issues and potential issues when you’re dealing with the regulation of social media.
“This policy codifies a lot of what is already law and puts it in place so we have some guide rails, so when the district does exercise its authority in limiting certain types of speech there is a guide rail and some things to point back to in the social media policy.”
Board member Gianni Floro expressed concern about informing teachers and staff about the new policy and its enforcement.
Superintendent Tammy Andreyko said the administrative team, including principals from all schools as well as the district’s police chief and others, will be discussing it in November.
The team meets on a monthly basis. Other employees would also receive notice once the policy is approved.
District director of communications Michelle Dietz said it is important to handle the policy’s implementation in phases.
“It cannot be 100% day one as soon as it has been voted on by the board in November,” Dietz said. “There will be a rollout of steps. (For example), here is the information that you as teachers and administrators need to know. Here’s the information that we need to receive back from you.
“There will be processes to get us to a place where we have clearly identified the accounts and who’s responsible for what. It’s not going to be an overnight flip a switch and all of a sudden the hammer or the iron fist comes down.”
Quaker Valley School District has a Facebook, YouTube and Instagram page. Dietz oversees those accounts.
Each school also has its own social media account. Those pages are routinely governed by their respective principals. The food services department also has an Instagram page.
The district still needs to inventory affiliated social media accounts such as booster organizations and clubs.
Dietz said the district’s increased social media presence was among the reasons for needing a policy.
“We are utilizing it more often and so we want to make sure that we’re able to protect ourselves as a district, protect our teachers and they are using it and our students and their families as things are shared,” Dietz said. “Another part of it is we’re just seeing more schools start to adopt these policies.”
Quaker Valley’s X account, formerly Twitter, is inactive.
Dietz said the district has blocked X for students and on all district devices due to the company allowing adult content on its platform.
“It is about the protection of students,” she said. “We have moved away from using Twitter because we don’t want to drive traffic to that platform. That’s not an uncommon move among public school districts. Many districts have moved away from Twitter for that exact reason.”
Michael DiVittorio is a TribLive reporter covering general news in Western Pennsylvania, with a penchant for festivals and food. He can be reached at mdivittorio@triblive.com.
