Social Media Use

Introduction

For educators, it’s important to use social media carefully to stay professional and protect student privacy. While social media can be useful for sharing ideas and staying updated, it also has risks, especially with privacy and boundaries.

It’s important to keep clear professional boundaries, protect confidentiality, and understand how even small details shared online can affect students and the school community. By following these tips, you can help build trust with students, parents, and coworkers and keep a positive image as part of the school.

Professional Boundaries

Be cautious about connecting on social media with parents of students. This can blur professional boundaries, which may lead to uncomfortable situations if parents see you as both a friend and an educator.

What Could Go Wrong?

Blurring of Lines

Being "friends online with parents can blur the lines between professional and personal relationships, which may make it harder to keep interactions appropriate and professional.

An educator who is friends with a parent on social media might get personal messages outside of work hours about their child’s progress, creating a sense of informal or constant availability. This can make it difficult to maintain a work-life balance and could create pressure to answer questions outside of work.

Paraeducators are part of the team providing specialized instruction and accommodations for children with disabilities. Having discussions about children outside of the team process or without your supervisor present can be a problem. Even in informal and social situations, the discussion is likely to turn to the child's education, needs, concerns and progress, which can lead to confusion and misunderstandings.

Perceived Favoritism

When an educator is friends with some parents on social media but not others, it can appear that they are giving special attention or favoring certain students.

For instance, if a parent posts a photo of their child and you "like" or comment on it, other parents may interpret this as favoritism, even though your intent is innocent.

Uncomfortable Situations

You might just be here to share cat memes, but can get dragged into other situations.

For instance, it can be very uncomfortable to be tagged in a post by a parent unhappy about something at school, such as...

Another night, another two hours of homework! Don't these stupid teachers know that kids have no time to be kids anymore? 📚😩 #HomeworkStruggle #LetThemPlay

Today’s school lunch: mystery meat and soggy fries. Our kids deserve better! What are we paying for? 🍔❓ #LunchFail #HealthyOptionsPlease

Emailed the teacher three times about my daughter’s math struggles... Still no response. Feeling ignored over here! 📩😕 #ConcernedParent #FollowUpPlease

Confidentiality Risks

What do you do when, a few minutes after posting something like this, a parent replies in the comments

Hope it wasn't Jason giving you trouble! He's been struggling lately.

This risks putting you in a situation where you violate confidentiality, even though the parent may have initiated the interaction.

It's not that much different than a parent running into you in a store. It's likely that their child will be brought up as a topic of conversation, which raises a lot of legal and ethical concerns for you. Though the parent may initiate the conversation, being in a public place means others without the educational need to know are likely to overhear.

Even though many parents wouldn't read into such a posting or respond to it, they may make assumptions such as that you're talking about their child. This can easily lead to a misunderstanding and hurt feelings. Parents may not say anything, so you are never aware there's a problem, but there can be resentment or a loss of trust.

If in doubt about any aspect of your social media use, consult with your supervisor or with ECKCE leadership.

Professionalism

Social media is a place to share and connect! It’s natural to post pictures or videos of fun activities, but remember that parents—and others—can often find your profile through search engines, even if you haven’t connected with them directly.

Consider the impression you’re creating with each post, as it can shape others' views about you. Always keep this in mind when sharing online.

Posting Anything Related to Work Carries Risks

Imagine that the person in this video has made hundreds of social media posts this year, with this being a compilation of five of them. What do you observe?

Excited to join Eugene Elementary!.mp4

She's let us know she works in a specific elementary school in her small town. Seems innocent!

She's assigned to a second grade classroom. That narrows things down! And only works with youth with disabilities? Uh oh...

She works with an "ornery" child with a specific disability. This won't involve a lot of detective work to figure out who she means.

She apparently also works there with a "wild" child with red hair. Is it a mystery who she is talking about, or are there a dozen such children in the class?

Did She Violate Confidentiality?

Some of what she shared seems fine. But it's the total package that matters. Let's see, she's mentioned -

The school's specific name, a small school in a small town where children are easier to identify.
She's working specifically with second graders, that narrows things down quite a bit, to perhaps about 20 kids in the town. Only a couple of them are likely to have disabilities, especially those significant enough to require the assistance of a paraprofessional. Which means almost anything she says going forward will be taken by many in the community to be a commentary on one of those children.
She talks a bit about children being "wild," fed too much sugar and affected by the full moon. Many who see this will make assumptions that these comments are targeting specific children.
Then she references a child with a tic disorder. At this point, virtually anybody in the community knows who she is talking about.
To top it off, she has described a child she works with as having red hair. Of about 20 children in second grade in a specific school, that is distinctive enough to likely make clear who that child is as well.