Your PTO President(s) are happy to sponsor a chat group for all questions and matters pertaining to school and community events that directly impact our children as attending students at Great Neck North Middle School. In order to ensure that there is an orderly, fair, and responsible discussion among the members of the chat group(s), we are posting the following rules. Please note that if you do not wish to be bound by these rules, you do not have to join or continue participation in any of the PTO-sponsored chat groups. You may exit at any time. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
This chat is intended only for Great Neck North Middle School matters and may be used to share helpful resources (academic or community-based) that would be of interest to students in this grade and/or their families. Please note that in the 8th grade chat, we may post matters of interest relating to the Great Neck North High School if those matters are relative to preparing our graduating class for transition to the high school.
This chat is not intended as a public or private discourse on political topics. This includes anything related to local or national elections (government, community, school board, etc.). As many of you likely know, there are plenty of other chats where those topics are being discussed and if that is of interest to you, we strongly suggest you seek out and join those other chats.
There is only one PTO-sponsored and sanctioned chat for each grade. There may be other chats opened and administered by other parents in the grade and/or school, but those chats are not sponsored or sanctioned by the PTO and we are not responsible for the information provided in those other chats. Please note that some or all of the PTO executive board may be members or even administrators of other chats, but that does not mean that the other chat is sponsored by those individuals in their capacity as members of the PTO executive board.
We expect all members to act kindly, graciously, and respectfully to other members. That means that if you have a personal issue with another parent in the PTO-sponsored chat, please don’t air out those issues here or use this as a forum to advance your position. This also means that we will not tolerate derogatory or defamatory comments made about other parents or students. Each of us has at least one child in this school and therefore we all have a vested interest in the administration and academic instruction here. We may not all agree on how that plays out, but this chat is not the place to start those discussions. You can reach out to your President(s) for guidance on what steps should be taken to address any grievances and, if appropriate, we may direct the inquiry back to this parent audience for moderated discussion.
Being a member of this chat is optional and a privilege. Abiding by these rules is required. If you have any questions about these rules or whether something you are about to post would violate these rules, we request that you reach out to your President(s) first. If material is posted here that may be deemed as violative of these rules, the President(s) will privately message you to advise of the basis and make a renewed request for you to not continue posting similar material or any other material that violates these rules. If a parent continues to post materials that does not comply with these rules, we will privately contact you and ask you to voluntarily leave the group. If you do not do so, we will remove you from the group.
We understand these rules may seem strict at first glance but the hope is that by providing definitive guidance we can overcome some of the struggles and challenges faced in prior years. We are also hoping that by providing a safe and courteous environment for parents to raise questions, concerns, and ideas, we can work together towards building a caring and productive parent association. If you have any questions, we ask that you comment to the PTO President(s) and refrain from making general comments or raising questions about the rules in the chat(s). We are the best role models for our kids and we hope that we can all rise to the occasion to show them how to act and talk on social media and IRL.