March 9, 2016
Dear DeKalb Schools Community,
In the 21st Century, students use technology more than ever before. They grow up with mobile
devices at their fingertips, and the Internet has become a social playground. Because social
media is instant, easy, and a common way of sharing information today, it is imperative that we
practice safe social networking.
The DeKalb County School District (DCSD) is providing guidelines for students and employees on
the use of social media inside and outside of the classroom.
While the DeKalb County Board of Education provides an official Internet Acceptable Use Policy,
found at the eBoard website on Dekalb.k12.ga.us, our guidelines offer a quick reference for
safe, online etiquette. See our guidelines online at
http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/communications.
Engagement, collaboration, learning, and sharing in digital environments are here to stay.
Because technology changes rapidly, our community must work together to educate students
on how to engage on social media platforms responsibly. In addition to these guidelines,
DeKalb County School District will provide activities and resources that support social media,
another important method of communication to keep our community in the know.
Let’s Stay Connected responsibly.
Sincerely,
Dr. R. Stephen Green
Superintendent
DeKalb County School District
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SOCIAL MEDIA PUBLISHING GUIDELINES
A. Introduction/Purpose
1. Social media technology can serve as a powerful communications tool supporting student
achievement, education, parent involvement, and 21st-century learning. Social media can
prepare our DeKalb County School District (DCSD) students to succeed in their educational and
professional endeavors. ‘Social media,’ the term, encompasses all communication shared in an
electronic format: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, blogs, social networks, and video-
hosting sites.
2. Our Social Media Guidelines offer professional recommendations and practices for
communication. We want to be sure that our DCSD employees use digital tools in a safe,
responsible manner that helps students reach goals.
Please refer to the DCSD Website and Online Social Media Publishing Guidelines (Policy IFBGB)
DCSD Website and Online Social Media Publishing Guidelines (Policy IFBGB) for more
information.
B. Definition of Social Media
Social media are online communications channels dedicated to community-based input,
interaction, content-sharing, and collaboration. In the DCSD, social media offer exceptional
transparency, foster engagement, and increase access to credible information, externally and
internally.
C. District Online Content Coordinator
The Superintendent or representative will designate a qualified individual as the District Online
Content Coordinator to maintain DCSD web sites and social media accounts. Those sites will
comply with all DeKalb County Board of Education policies and regulations, and all local, state,
and federal laws.
The Online Content Coordinator will maintain and distribute Web Publishing and Compliance
Guidelines for use with DCSD Web sites and social media. All material placed on DCSD Web
sites or social media accounts will be consistent with these guidelines and approved by the
Online Content Coordinator.
The Online Content Coordinator will maintain and distribute written Guidelines and
Recommendations for Personal Use of Web Sites and Social Media Accounts for employees and
students with an online presence. These guidelines will support proper use of social media and
help prevent disruption of the school environment.
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The Online Content Coordinator will create an official registration procedure for individual
schools, teachers, students, and extracurricular organizations that want to create web pages
and social media accounts.
D. Applicability
Our social media guidelines apply to all our DCSD valued staff and service people.
E. Establishment
The DCSD will establish and manage social media sites, for example Twitter, Facebook,
YouTube, and Instagram. Appropriate content for these sites includes:
DeKalb County School District information
DeKalb County Board of Education information
Information from individual schools
Teacher and classroom information
Student projects
Information from our education partners
Information from extracurricular organizations
F. Professional Social Media Use
1. Professional Email Accounts vs Personal Email Accounts
For social media, our DCSD employees should maintain separate professional and personal
email addresses. The regular use of a personal email address for professional purposes may
result in DCSD considering the personal address a professional account.
2. Communication with DCSD Students
All DCSD employees who work with students and professionally engage with them on social
media sites should:
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a. Create social media sites that address reasonable instructional, educational, or extra-
curricular topics.
b. Notify our DCSD parents each school year of the professional social media activities set
up for their children’s participation.
3. Guidance for Professional Social Media Sites
a. All our DCSD employees should treat the professional social media space like a
classroom or professional workplace. The standards for conduct in DCSD professional
settings also apply to professional social media sites.
b. All our DCSD employees should exercise responsibility, caution, sound judgment, and
common sense when using professional social media sites.
c. When setting up professional social media sites, principals or their representatives and
our employees should responsibly consider their intended audience and the appropriate
level of privacy.
d. Individual schools, teachers, students, and extracurricular organizations may create
social media accounts. They should first obtain a principal’s approval and properly
register the account with the Online Content Coordinator.
e. Principals and their representatives must maintain a list of all professional social media
accounts in their schools.
f. School-based social media accounts on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook
should cross-collaborate with our DCSD central office’s social media accounts. While
each school owns its’ brand, each also belongs to our larger organization. We encourage
principals and their representatives to engage with and support DCSD social media sites
by, for example, sharing or retweeting District news releases or events on their school
sites.
g. To differentiate professional DCSD social media sites from personal sites, accounts
should include language and logos that clearly identify them as professional sites.
h. Content shared on social media should have a reasonable and positive relationship with
the mission and function of DCSD. An example: Sharing public library events supports
the partnership in education with DCSD and DeKalb County Government.
i. Our DCSD employees should use privacy settings for their intended audiences.
Limitations to privacy settings exist, however, and DCSD employees should be aware
that social media sites can change their default privacy settings and other functions at
any time.
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j. Professional social media communication must comply with DCSD policies and laws on
the disclosure of confidential information, cyberbullying, student privacy, threatening
language, and other school place issues.
k. No student’s personally identifiable information may be posted by DCSD employees on
professional social media sites available outside the classroom. An example would be
posting student information to a ‘buddy’ class in another country. Posting any image of
a student online requires a written, signed media consent form for the featured child.
Consent forms are on file at our schools and may be found online at
http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/communications.
4. Monitoring of Professional Social Media Sites
a. Our DCSD principals and representatives are responsible for monitoring their
employees’ professional social media sites. Each school must monitor its own sites.
Monitoring responsibilities include regular reviews of site content and reports of any
questionable communications.
b. Our DCSD principals and representatives reserve the right to remove postings or disable
pages on sites that do not adhere to laws or DCSD policies.
5. Inquiries
a. Media inquiries received on sites should be referred to the DCSD Office of
Communications. http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/communications .
E. Personal Social Media Use by Our DCSD Employees
1. Communication with DCSD Students
To maintain a professional relationship with students, our DCSD employees should not
communicate on personal social media sites with students currently enrolled in DCSD schools.
We make an exception for communication with relatives of students.
2. Guidance Regarding Our DCSD Employees’ Personal Social Media Sites
Our DCSD employees should exercise caution, common sense, and professionalism when using
their personal social media sites.
a. We encourage DCSD employees to use appropriate privacy settings to control access
to their personal social media sites. Be aware, however, that privacy settings have
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limitations, and private communication on the Internet can easily become public. Also,
social media sites can change default privacy settings and other functions at any time.
Our employees are responsible for understanding and complying with the rules of any
social media sites they use. Personal social media sites that address workplace business
may be subject to Open Records laws.
b. We do not recommend that our employees ‘tag’ photos of other DCSD employees,
volunteers, contractors, or vendors without prior written permission from these people.
c. Personal social media use, including use after-hours, always has the potential to cause
disruptions at school or the workplace, in violation of DCSD policies and the law.
d. We prohibit the posting or disclosure of students’ personally identifiable information
or confidential information on personal social media sites, if it violates DCSD policies or
any laws.
e. Our employees should never use the DCSD logo or imply that their personal social
media sites speak in an official capacity for DCSD. We do permit use of the DCSD logo
when it automatically posts on personal social media sites such as LinkedIn. When it
doubt, check with the Coordinator.
f. We strongly recommend that our DCSD employees maintain transparency and be
honest about their identities when they post on social media. When employees identify
themselves as DCSD employees, they must be clear that they express individual and
personal views, not necessarily the official views of the DCSD.
F. Applicability of DCSD Policies and Other Laws
1. The DCSD Guidelines supplement, but do not supersede, existing DCSD policies and
laws. Our DCSD social media users must comply with all applicable federal, state and
local laws, including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and the
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
2. Our Guidelines do not serve as a code of conduct for social media use and do not
constitute a separate basis for potential discipline. However, all existing DCSD policies,
regulations, and laws that cover employee work place conduct also apply in the social
media environment. These include the DCSD Website and Online Social Media
Publishing Guidelines (Policy IFBGB).
G. Additional Inquiries
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This document provides general guidance, but does not cover every potential social media
situation. Please consult the District Online Coordinator or our DCSD regulations with any
inquiries. As our guidelines address rapidly changing technologies, we will regularly revisit and
update them.
H. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) General
1. Why does the DCSD issue guidance for using social media?
Social media technology offers many educational benefits. We issue these guidelines to
encourage professionalism, responsibility, safety, and awareness by our employees who
use social media. Our guidelines also recommend best practices for employees who
use social media for professional or personal communication.
2. How may DCSD parents, students, and employees give feedback on these guidelines?
We welcome feedback on our guidelines and FAQs. Because technology and best
practices change rapidly, we plan to systematically review and update guidance. If you
have any feedback or a suggestion, please send an e-mail to our District email address:
dcsd_communications@dekalbschoolsga.org.
3. Do the guidelines apply to all DCSD employees or just those who work in schools?
Our guidelines apply to all DCSD employees – our valued school staffs and our valued
central, network, and cluster staffs too.
4. What are common types of social media?
Blogs. Short for ‘web-logs,’ blogs function as ongoing journals, where users make
systematic entries. Typically, bloggers ‘tag’ entries for easy online searches. Most blogs
allow readers to comment. Examples: Blogger. WordPress.
Microblogs. These blogs, as the name implies, have shorter posts, typically limiting the
number of typed characters allowed. Microblogs are good for status updates and quickly
communicating information to ‘friends’ or ‘followers.’ Examples: Twitter. Tumblr.
Networking sites. These allow people to connect with each other to explore common
interests and pursuits. Examples: Facebook. LinkedIn. Google+. Twitter. Instagram.
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Photo/Video sites. These allow people to share videos, images, slideshows, and other
visual media. These sites often allow viewers to comment and post their own content.
Examples: YouTube. Vimeo. Flickr. Instagram. Snapchat.
5. The guidelines state that they supplement, not supersede, DCSD policies and the law. What
does this mean?
Social media use should always comply with our DCSD policies and all laws. Before our
DCSD employees use a student’s name or other personally identifiable information on
social media, for example, they should be aware of policies and laws that might apply to
the situations of individual students.
Personal Social Media Sites
6. Why do you recommend that DCSD employees have separate professional and personal
social media sites and e-mail addresses?
All DCSD employees must keep their personal and professional online communications
separate. Professional social media is work-related; it may involve employee-to-student
communication. Personal social media is not work-related; it does not involve
employee-to-student communication, with limited exceptions noted in our guidelines.
7. May DCSD employees use their personal social media accounts to communicate with their
DCSD colleagues?
Our guidelines don’t address communication among our employees on personal social
media sites. Even so, we encourage our DCSD employees on personal social media to
use appropriate privacy settings to control access to their sites … and only use personal
sites on their own time.
8. I have a personal web site where I post book reviews. What best practices do you
recommend for DCSD employees with personal social media sites like mine that are
professional in nature and may involve students, but aren’t directly related to the DCSD?
Keep in mind that even when a DCSD employee is ‘off the clock,’ students see him/her
as an authority figure. If an employee discovers that a DCSD student accesses a personal
social media site for any type of activity, the employee should notify the parents or
guardians of the student.
Employees
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9. What if DCSD employees already use social media for professional or personal purposes?
For professional social media use: DCSD employees should make sure their use aligns
with the Social Media Guidelines and these FAQs. Any use not consistent with these
guidelines should be altered or amended in a reasonable period of time to conform to
our DCSD policies and the law. Employees with links from a professional social media
site to a personal e-mail address should transition the site to a professional e-mail
address.
For personal social media use: Our guidelines recommend that DCSD employees who
use social media for personal purposes should not allow any current DCSD students
access to those sites.
Our employees should periodically review the Social Media Guidelines and FAQ (we’ll
update them as needed) to make sure they remain up-to-date on recommended
practices.
Our DCSD central office and schoolhouses provide social media resources for employees
who use social media for professional purposes. Check the Employee Portal for webinar
trainings.
10. On social media, when and where should the DCSD logo be used?
Only use the logo for official DCSD business. Websites that officially represent a school
may use the official school logo. Note that when a social media site like LinkedIn and
Facebook automatically generates the DCSD logo, it’s not a problem.
11. What other technology-related guidance can support DCSD employees on social media?
Please see the Policy IFBG: Internet Acceptable Use. This link has information that
governs all electronic activity for users of DCSD’s network.
12. Who monitors professional social media sites? How frequently?
Our guidelines recommend that professional social media sites be regularly reviewed
and monitored by principals and their representatives. The specific frequency and level
of review depends on the particular characteristics of the site. Interactive sites that
allow comments and posting, for example, should always be monitored more closely.
13. If DCSD employees want to develop professional social media for their classrooms, then
what should they do?
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First, our employees should review the Social Media Guidelines and FAQs periodically to
be familiar with the content and any updates. Then they should research and familiarize
themselves with the social media site they intend to use.
If students will be using the proposed professional social media, our employees must
review the site’s regulations and determine the age children are allowed to use it. An
example: Let’s say a female teacher plans to create a Facebook page for her third-grade
class. She will learn that Facebook requires users to be age 13 or older. She will need to
find some other tool. Employees should also review the requirements of the federal
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
Our employees should know the privacy and viewing settings for a social media site. We
recommend, where possible, that our DCSD employees establish groups or pages, rather
than individual profiles, for educational purposes.
Guidance for School Leaders
14. How should principals address parents who have concerns about their children’s use of
social media?
The DCSD recognizes social media’s powerful benefits for students, teachers, and school
communities. Many, and probably most, schools now use these 21st-century tools. Our own
schools should inform parents of the opportunities social media provide for college and career
readiness. In some cases, schools may need to ‘market’ these tools to parents unfamiliar with
their benefits. This social media resource can help: Get Connected on the Employee Portal
under Communications. (Translations are available.)
Schools should let families know that technology and technology-based tools are an
important part of being work-ready in today’s society.
The reason social media skills matter is well explained in this study: Are they Really
Ready to Work?
15. How can administrators effectively monitor information posted on professional social media
sites?
Our recommendations:
Draw up a comprehensive list of all professional social media sites created
and used by your staff.
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Create one administrative account for administrators or a designated
network point-person.
Become a member of all professional social media sites and view their
posted materials.
When possible, set up e-mail notifications when new material posts.
Consider having more than one person monitor sites, and prioritize which
should be monitored most frequently.
16. Do I need to be an administrator on every site?
Principals do not need to be an administrator on every site. A representative, such as an
AP or media specialist, can fill this role.
Teachers and Other School-Based Staff
17. Should parents be notified if a child needs to use social media for school-related activities?
Yes. Our DCSD schools should notify parents every school year if a child will participate
in professional social media activities. Parents with questions or concerns should
contact the school for more information.
18. The guidelines recommend that principals (or their representatives) have administrator
rights. Does this mean that teachers or school-based staff must hand over their professional
social media user names and passwords?
It does not. Teachers and staff may choose to give the principal or representative access
to a site. The guidelines simply suggest that principals have at least limited access, using
their own log-in user names and passwords. Why? If a teacher is out recovering from an
extended illness, the administrator can monitor the professional social media site.
19. Are teachers mandated reporters as required by federal and state laws when it comes to
online activity?
Yes. As indicated in the guidelines, teachers are mandated reporters.
20. How should our DCSD employees respond to friend requests by current students on their
personal social media sites and accounts?
They should decline any request. Our suggested response: Please do not be offended,
but I cannot accept your request. As a DCSD employee, it’s best for us to communicate
using my professional social media account. Our DCSD Social Media Guidelines
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discourage interactions with current students on personal social media sites. If you want
to connect, please contact me through District email.
21. What should DCSD supervisors and representatives responsible for monitoring professional
social media do if they discover inappropriate activity?
Contact the appropriate authorities for assistance. Use the DCSD reporting
requirements.
22. What confidential information or personally identifiable student information should not be
posted or disclosed? What about graded work?
Posting certain graded student work online may be in violation of FERPA. Any DCSD
employee who has questions about confidential or personally identifiable student
information should contact a principal. The principal will then contact our regional
superintendent.
23. Are teachers or other school staff personally liable for student posts on professional social
media sites?
No. If a teacher views an inappropriate post, he/she is, however, required to follow
DCSD regulations for reporting it. We also recommend that teachers act as moderators
for professional social media sites and we recommend that students never post
information on professional social media sites without teacher approval. Professional
social media sites should be monitored regularly and offensive and inappropriate posts
should be removed in a timely manner.
24. Can the guidelines be used for disciplinary purposes?
No. These are guidelines, not rules. Though we strongly suggest our valued employees
follow these guidelines, no one will not be disciplined for failure to follow them.
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