5 Ways to Keep Social Media from Being a Legal Headache: Our Expert Explains Some Basic Privacy Issues That District Leaders Need to Understand

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] During the past 10 years, privacy, freedom of speech and technology issues have become highly interconnected in society. With the proliferation of smartphones and digital platforms, students and school personnel are communicating more than ever via electronic mediums. Social media platforms and apps have become extremely popular with students and with the general population. This change has required the K-12 community to better understand the ramifications of these new technologies. What may be a popular digital platform or app today may be out of vogue tomorrow. Friendster and MySpace gave way to Facebook and Twitter. With the proliferation of mobile apps, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Kik, Yik Yak, Whisper and Secret have caught the attention of K-12 students during the past couple of years. The popularity of a new platform may spread through a school or district overnight. So it may be difficult for administrators to keep up with the latest social media app, but it is imperative for educators to understand a number of legal issues that apply to social media in general. Social Media Guidelines and Policies Most states don't require their school districts to create social media guidelines. However, some states, such as New Jersey, require their schools to draft and implement policies that adhere to certain principles. There is no one-size-fits-all social media policy for students, teachers and school administrators. State law and community standards differ around the country, so what may be acceptable in one jurisdiction may not work in another. If your district decides to draft a social media policy, leaders should discuss the plan with the proper stakeholders to avoid a major backlash when the new policies are implemented. For example, the New York City Department of Education drafted staff guidelines, a teacher guide to student social media usage and student guidelines--and its efforts did not attract an outpouring of legal threats. By contrast, California's Lodi Unified School District provides a textbook example of how not to draft and implement a social media policy. Its initial policy clearly violated the First Amendment rights of students who participated in extracurricular activities, and only after legal threats and national media attention was the ill-conceived policy revised. While the social media policy for baseball players at Lamar High School (TX) has not received the same negative media attention as Lodi's, its tenets are just as egregious. For example, it requires student-athletes to follow @lamarbaseball on Twitter and Instagram and allow Lamar Baseball to follow them back. It requires student-athletes to "Like" Lamar Baseball on Facebook and remove a post from a personal account if requested. These requirements clearly violate the First and Fourth Amendment rights of students and may create legal liability for the district. While different communities may have different philosophies on acceptable social media usage, school districts must remember not to implement an overly restrictive policy that creates unintended legal liabilities. Accessing Student and Staff Personal Social Media Accounts In general, when a school has a reasonable suspicion that a student has broken the law or school rules, it has the right to search a student's personal belongings on school grounds. Unfortunately, there is no clear definition of what constitutes "reasonable suspicion," so officials should tread carefully before searching a student's personal digital devices and social media accounts. Requesting access to students' persona) digital devices or social media accounts may be very costly to schools. In 2010, a Pennsylvania school district paid $33,000 to settle a case in which a high school student's cell phone was confiscated and unconstitutionally searched. A Minnesota school district paid $70,000 in 2014 to settle a federal lawsuit in which the school district threatened a sixth-grade student until she gave her school access to her personal e-mail and social media accounts. …