I am not sure what it is about Facebook that causes professionals to lose all their judgement and ability to reason and act as an adult particularly when it concerns personnel matters. One outcome of this is that employers are allowing themselves to get caught up in their employees' personal, non-work related use of this online communication platform. And this is happening even though normally what employees do when they are on their own time is not really a matter for concern for employers unless the employee gets involved in criminal activities. And in that case, it usually becomes public knowledge, and the employer need not worry about doing their own investigation. So, this shift to focus on one specific non-work activity does not really make sense or seem right. But what has been more disturbing is that education professionals in the public school system, specifically adminstrators, are practicing this same type of intrusion into the private lives of their students.
When this violation of privacy into a student's private Facebook account occurs, there are several critical differences from the violation of privacy of an adult employee:
- The chances that a student under 18 fully understands their rights is minimal while an adult usually has a better chance of understanding their rights.
- The administrator has a position of authority at a school so the student is more likely to be hesitant to disobey or not go along with requests to share their private, online account. An employee usually respects the employer's authority, but not usually to the point that abuse of their rights is tolerated.
- The administration at a school can, if not monitored or managed well by a superintendent or board, can cause a student problems or harass them if the student does not go along with this violation of privacy. If this happens to an employee they can seek another job; the only way a student can realistically "quit" that school is to have their family relocate their home. This could be a major disruption to a family relying on jobs or having other kids in that school system.
- A student might be worried that if he does not go along with the administrator's request, his or her parents could be called increasing their chances in their mind for getting into trouble or being embarrassed by having their parents read their private messages. I don't think too many employees have to worry about their employer calling their mother to share secrets lurking in their Facebook messages.
- For education to successfully occur, there needs to be some level of trust by the student in the adults at their school. And once this trust is broken by a violation of the student's privacy, the environment is no longer conducive for education or participation in other school-related activities to occur. A breakdown in trust between employer and employee might be tolerated for a while, and if it cannot be, the employee has the right and choice to quit.
Wake Up Call to Public Schools
Why is all this important or critical for a school to acknowledge and understand? Based on the social media education we have had at our city, it seems that this practice opens up an employer, or in this case the school, to legal liabilities. If they are regularly monitoring or requiring students to share private account information and messages, we learned they can risk liabilities based on what they read. And what is also critical is if this practice is preventing education from occuring, then schools risk not carrying out their primary mission.
Violation of a Student's Privacy is a Violation of a Family's Privacy
While abuse of privacy by employers and even colleges has become public knowledge and legislators are beginning to consider passing laws to prevent this, there seems to be little information about the abuse occurring at the public school level. Parents are probably not aware this is going on because few teens are going to run home and tell their mom or dad they were called into their counselor's or principal's office to allow full access to their Facebook account. It's embarrassing, and what teen wants to risk having to share their private messages with their mom or dad. But I can't imagine most parents would be happy to know their child is being forced to open up a window not only into their own private life, but potentially the lives of all of their friends and relatives. This intrusion ends up not only violating the privacy of the child, but also that of their whole family and the lives of their friends. Would most people be ok with their child's principal or counselor reading all about every matter that goes on in their family?
The other issue in all this is if the school is doing something so risky as forcing kids to share private Facebook accounts and messages, they probably have not developed a policy for dealing with it all. So what is to stop the principal from printing out a child's message about the fight their parents had last night or how they found out they have a serious disease or illness or how they lost their job and are worried about making ends meet. And then what is to stop that principal from sharing that with anyone else? If there are no policies, how can this practice be regulated and how can parents be assured their own privacy has not been violated?
I only became aware of all this myself and the problems it introduces because one of my children was the victim of coercion and eventually violation into her private account by school officials. When it occurred, it created tremendous stress and problems for my family because of its effect on my daughter. Her trust in and the respect of the adults at her school has been shattered to the point that she is struggling to look beyond this abuse and allow for the education process to occur. And because I also can no longer trust them to perform their duties with good judgement, I have trouble knowing how to counsel her on how to handle situations at school.
Legislation Desperately Needed
When I read about the push to pass legislation to prevent employers and colleges from requiring access to social media accounts, I realized this needed to be extended to include public schools. And I realized many school officials might not realize these practices are going on. Fortunately I have been able to discuss this with Bradley Shear, an attorney championing this legislation throughout the country. And hopefully if others become aware that abuse in public schools is a real issue, he will be able to convince legislators to also regulate those institutions with these laws. So I decided to go ahead and write this blog to let others know this is going on and to indicate support in adding public schools to these laws. If you want to read the general details of our own, personal experience, I've shared them below.
Our Experience
Normally I don't like sharing the nitty gritty details of my family's life, particularly on my blog. But I'm doing so because it brings to light an issue government agencies need to be made aware of and only by sharing can we convince legislators there is a real problem. In our particular case, the abuses and actions by the administrators at my daughter's school have been appalling. It started because a teacher heard another student spreading rumors about my daughter – all of it unrelated to school and nothing against the law. So the school called in my daughter to demand to know if the rumors were true. This went on for some days, without my knowledge, and culminated in them asking her to open her Facebook account to them which she did. Then the vice principal called me to demand I come to the school immediately to read through her private messages. At the time I was out of town for work and could not make it back until later that night. She had obviously kept the account open long after my daughter had left and told me she would keep it open until I got there. She was almost hysterical about the whole situation also demanding I punish my daughter for what she had supposedly done. I tried to explain I could not come in and did not feel comfortable punishing my daughter for something I could never prove to have occurred. Finally at the end of our conversation, I told her to close the account, and I would contact her the next day.
But after I hung up, I began to realize what a violation of my daughter's privacy this whole episode was. It did not appear that my daughter had done anything wrong at school yet they had subjected her to an investigation as if she was a criminal and then read through all her messages which would have been equivalent to my teachers going through my diary when I was in grade school. Of course I found out when I got home that this had taken a huge toll on my daughter who ended up crying through most of the rest of the day and therefore missed most of her classes. She was embarrassed and very upset. Particularly so because their line of questioning had also been sexual in nature with them demanding she share with them everything she had done sexually. In this day and age, I just cannot imagine how a school administrator could confront a 13-year old girl and demand to know the extent of her sexual experience.
So the next day, I spoke with the principal thinking he would set things straight. But instead I learned about even more disturbing practices. He explained that the reason they had to interrogate my daughter was because the punishment for spreading rumors is different depending on if the rumor is true or not. So he insisted of his need to conduct an investigation into the truth each time they hear a rumor about a child. And obviously he did not see a problem with not contacting a parent first. I tried to point out that by not contacting a parent first, particularly with questioning related to the sexuality of a student, they risk many issues. I asked him if he ever considered they might be interrogating a child who had been a victim of sexual abuse and without first consulting a parent they would risk further causing pain for that child? Fortunately in our case, my daughter does not have that background, but how would they have known if they had not first called a parent? He said he cannot call parents until he has the truth. I told him not to pry into the private lives of my children. And he said he cannot do that – it is his obligation to look out for the morals and ethics of the children at his school. And if he feels they are not leading a moral life (obviously according to his standards), he is going to launch an investigation. And only if he finds they are in fact exhibiting poor behavior will he contact parents. And even then he said he doesn't like contacting parents because most kids don't want their parents to know anything and would rather just talk to him. Of course, I ended the conversation by making it clear he did not have my permission to interrogate or invade the privacy of any of my children without first discussing it with me unless they were violating some school rule. I also indicated I felt he was depriving me of my right to parent my own child and that his staff desperately needed some education in how to handle these matters. His response was, "Fine, for the Broviak children, I will call you first."
I struggled with legally pursuing this matter because it was so stressful and disruptive to my family. It definitely affected my daughter's grades and her relationship with the school. But because we have other children who will or are attending that school and did not want to risk having their education jeopardized, we chose not to pursue litigation even though I was advised we would have a case. Also, I thought it was more important that the school realize they need to change their practices and stop any other child from going through this.
When I learned a few months after this that the counselor had told another mother not to allow her daughter, who was one of my daughter's best friends, to spend time with mine, I finally called a meeting with the principal and school superintendent. Again I tried to emphasize how wrong these practices were, that they were violating our rights by doing these things, and that they desperately needed to educate their staff. But both men disagreed with my assessment and even went so far as to deny a lot of this happened. Even though I talked to the other mother myself, they said that never occurred. So the only outcome was to change the counselor that my daughter would report to.
For now, they have not again approached my daughter for her private information. We are trying to get through the last part of 7th and hope to make it through 8th with no more problems. But my daughter says they are still regularly taking kids into the counselor's office and telling them they cannot leave until they open up their Facebook accounts to their scrutiny. I asked her what the kids do and she said, "they let them see the accounts because otherwise, they are not allowed to leave the room." And that is just wrong, and something tells me the school's attorney would not be too happy to find out this was happening on a regular basis.
Sorry to say that with all the good that laptops, cellphones, ipads, etc provide for our society, with that comes media abuse that can sometimes lead to death as a result of cyberbullying. Our school never asks for students' passwords unless there is reasonable cause that a rule or crime has been violated. If government is allowed to regulate how authorities access citizens' personal media data, let's hope they do so responsibily. I personally don't want government in that business unless a crime has been committed.
Thanks James for commenting – you are fortunate your school is handling these issues in a responsible manner. So far our elementary and high school also seem to be doing a good job. In my experience it has only been this one middle school.
While I agree with some of what you are saying the thing that gives me a problem is that you claim in regards to your daughter that it was checked based on what they had been told, known as heresay. However, you are only going by what your daughter has told you, according to the article, has happened with others. Have you personally talked with these other ones to find out if in fact this is the truth of the matter? How come you don't like heresay being used against your daughter yet you practice it against the school? Another thing, I think too many parents are teaching their kids that they don't have to listen to authority, these kids think they can say and do what they want with no consequences because if they cry hard enough mommy or daddy will fix everything…. did you actually find out if your daughter was doing something wrong or did you just take her word for it because as you know kids never lie… just a thought on the other side of the coin.
justme, I did the best I could to talk to other kids and parents who have all verified what my daughter had said. And when I first called the principal, my first question to him was did my daughter do anything wrong. He said no – she had done nothing wrong at all.
I am also not the fixer type either – too many kids to take this parenting approach. And I definitely agree it is disturbing that in the end I had to tell my kids not to trust or respect the authority of these adults because this is exactly the opposite of what I have been telling them their entire lives. But unfortunately the admins gave me no choice but to change my instructions to my kids which I tried to explain to the school admins was not a good thing. But I don’t want them to have the opportunity to use their authority in the future to intimidate my kids, cause stress to my family, and abuse the rights of my kids again. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.
HOLY COW! Glad my kids are through school and I don't have these issues. BUT I can promise you this – my children would NEVER let the school have access to their stuff – AND – demand the school call me! Even if it meant sitting in that room for an entire day – that's where they would be until momma showed up! This reminds me of the school demanding to search a students backpack, clothing, purses, etc.
Until we (as parents) educate our children on how to stand up for themselves against bullies – and YES – the administrators in this school are BULLIES – this will continue to be a problem. However, you also have the resources of your school board. Where do they stand on this issue? I would definitely be campaigning this issue with other parents and with the school board.
I have waged war against school tyrants AND we the parents won! The superintendant was terminated by the school board for being a tyrant! You can excercise your rights and start contacting other parents for their input on this situation. YOU the PARENTS can PUT A STOP TO THIS NONSENSE – but you must band together and fight the injustices that are being carried out against your children.
Lawsuits are not fun – but they can be beneficial in stopping the abuse.
Keep on addressing this issue! I hope you are successful at bringing about the change necessary for our nations children in the public schools!
Veterkins, it is amazing that the admins like to throw around the cyber bullying term to justify their actions, but in the end, have no problem using intimidation and bullying to get what they want. I did eventually try going to the school board, but the guy I talked to referred me to the superintendent which I think was the right thing to do. After all they are probably paying this guy at least $200K to $300K to handle these types of things. The unfortunate thing was while he did meet with me and the principal, all he did was take notes and not really take a leadership position to solve the issue or assure me he would address my concerns other than to change the counselor my daughter would report to. So going back to the board seemed a fruitless endeavor. In the end, the other choice – helping to get legislation passed and educate others on the issue – seemed to have the best chance to solve the problem and make sure no other parent in the US would have to worry about this. Your support means a lot, and thanks for taking the time to comment.
The unfortunate thing about this is that, as parents, if we don't teach our children at home how to stand up for themselves and force others to respect their privacy they will always give into adult pressures to comply with demands for private information. Social media outlets are only as private as you allow them to be. Always teach kids in this technology driven age to never surrender passwords and teach them to make it a practice to regularly change their passwords for the protections of their private information.
Too often I read and/or hear of school officials browsing students FB or Twitter looking for damaging comments or information. I'd like to believe that they would better serve their communities if they focused on what they were hired to do ….. TEACH !! I find that enough of them have a hard enough time at doing that …..
John, it is disturbing that school admins are handling issues like this in this manner. I only wish I had considered that they might do something like this because I would have warned her to call me immediately if she is forced to share private information with them. And the horrible thing for her other than having to go through it all is that it is now preventing them from successfully educating her which is really what their mission and objective is. Fortunately just about every single teacher of hers has been extremely supportive and gone out of their way to help her. And the counselor she is now allowed to see has also gone out of her way to help. In a way, the principal and vice principal handling of this just made my daughter’s teachers’ jobs a lot harder. Thanks for your comment!
Your child's post to a PUBLIC SOCIAL NETWORK are NOT private.Once she posts it out there, it is in a database at FB for life. Maybe you should teach your child that she shouldn't put anything on that site that she would be embarrased to have anyone see. That seems like a no brainer. Secondly, teach your child that bullying is wrong – and you are wrong for trying to protect her right to put things on her page that may be hurtful or offensive to other children. I am appalled that you believe these educators just decided out of the blue to look at your kid's page. SOMETHING occured that they wanted to check out. IF your child was being bullied over facebook, would you not want the teachers who get wind of it to step in and assist? {you seem like the kind of person who would blame the school for not intervening if that did happen to your kid}. Children are cruel and parents are clueless. The rules of facebook are the same as life – If you are doing something that you don't want your parents or teachers to find out about, then what you are doing is WRONG. PERIOD. why would your child be embarrassed about what anyone saw? It is a PUBLIC SOCIAL NETWORK. Anyone who doesn't understand that they shouldn't put anything on facebook thta they woudn't want the world to see has no business using it. it's for SHARING information. IT IS NOT A PLACE TO POST PRIVATE, CONFIDENTIAL thoughts, feelings or information. There is no reasonable assumption of privacy on a social network. College recruiters look at those pages, lady. Employers look at those pages. It's how you find out what kind of person you are really dealing with, and whether that is the type of person you want to be associated with your school, your business and most definately, YOUR CHILDREN. Take your child off of FB or teach her that it is not a place for her to put private thoughts that she wouldn't want the world to see. And stop trying to interfere with people who are, by all accounts, trying to help someone else's child not be a victim of children whose parents think their minor child should be able to do what they want on FB, regardless of how it may be affecting someone else's child's life. Cyber bullying is serious, and children are naive and don't understand the impact of their words. FB is giving them a forum to taunt and bully without their parents or teachers seeing it or hearing it, and you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to create a situation where they can get away with it.
Anne, I agree that online posts are not private in any way. I also think you are right about teaching kids to post responsibly and be aware of consequences if they do not. We have tried to teach our kids this lesson. But in this particular case, the incident had nothing to do with cyber bullying although I now realize the superintendent’s response to this in the article could have been stated in that manner on purpose to suggest that it was to help alleviate any criticism of their actions. But my daughter did not put anything online that was hurtful or offensive to another person – if she had she would have been in huge trouble by us. Instead what the school was searching through was not the public online part of the site. The school did not look at her public posts – they asked to see her private messages that are actually more like email on FB. No one can see these messages but my daughter, so the people who sent her these messages had expected some level of privacy that has now been shattered. I think many of us would probably be embarrassed if anyone could read private letters or messages we send to another person, and many would not feel comfortable having anonymous people we don’t know reading about intimate details of our lives that have not been posted publicly but instead shared only between two people. I’m also concerned there is no guidance on what school admins can do with these private messages. What if they print them out and share them with anyone they want? Thanks for posting.
First I want to thank everyone for taking the time to comment. Because I am in a conference until later today I can only leave this brief comment. But I do want to say that I think school administrators are using the cyber bullying buzz word as a way to justify this. And in my daughter's case I again want to emphasize cyber bullying had absolutely nothing to do with it. The school said they violated her privacy without my permission because she was a victim of someone verbally mentioning her name in a rumor in a verbal conversation. She in no way had bullied someone at all.
I have to commen on a couple of the comments!
Regarding justme's comments: Not all of it is hearsay, she talked to another mother that confirmed one of her daugther's stories. And it's really irrellavant – Shools should not be allowed to force students to login to their Facebook or other social media pages without the parents consent first – especially to validate/invalidate a rumor!
Regarding Anne Bourgine's comment: Not everything on facebook is public. What about private messages I send to friends and family? There is a definate expectation of privacy there. You also can decide who can see what on Facebook. You can make it so everyone can see your posts (truly public) or you can make it so only your friends or frieds of friends can see posts. You have control over a lot of different aspects of privacy on facebook. The shools just eat right through that when they force you to login so they can take a look (or worse, force you to give them your password!)
Personally, I'm appauled at the story. I think it is wrong. I see the need for schools & authoritites to troll facebook for criminal activity, but what your daughter was put through was just wrong. The school really needs to find another way to deal with rumors.
Thom – thanks for sharing your thoughts. Their method of dealing with rumors does seem very strange. It ends up traumatizing the victim who is already upset because of the rumor.
Pam,
First, let me say that I think it's wonderful that you've made the decision to speak out on behalf of your daughter. Second, let me also say that I am not the least bit surprised by the way the school administrators have acted at your daughter's school. I live in St. Louis and just last week, it was discovered that the Principal at a high school in an affluent neighborhood had created a fake facebook profile, posing as a student, and had friended several students AND their parents as a way to spy. Like you, I was incredulous that a grown woman with a PhD, would stoop to this level of immaturity and deceitfulness in the name of "protecting" her school and its students. The days of social media have brought out the worst in schools and has amplified their need for control over their students lives. I agree with you that legislation needs to be constructed to make it illegal for school adminstrators to invade students privacy like this. My heart goes out to your daughter who had to deal with bullying from the very people who are supposed to be looking out for her best interests and protecting her! I would STRONGLY urge you to go ahead with litigation against the school. While I understand your fear for your other children, I worry about the message you are sending to them also. Even though you spoke up for your daughter, you are continuing to allow the school to not only intimidate your daughter but intimidate you as well. Additionally, their actions will go unpunished even if legislation is created in the future to address this kind of irrational and unacceptable behavior. I encourage you to file a lawsuit if you can afford it. You definitely have a good case in my opinion. Good luck and please let your daughter know that their are people out there who beleive that she has every right to hold her head high and she doesn't have to tolerate abuse from anyone, including her school's adminstrators!
Kelly – thanks for your comment and support – it is intimidating which I can’t help but wonder if they count on to be allowed to continue with their actions. We have tried to use this as a learning opportunity with our kids, and I am hoping if the legislation passes, they will learn that if talking and discussion doesn’t first work, then there are other routes to take. My main concern at this point with litigation is that it might only help in our district where the legislation will help all of us. Thanks again!
This behavior is disgusting, and if occuring as described, illegal. Being held (presumably against ones will) in an office until you comply with demands, especially without contact to parents, could (I emphasize could, due to difference in state laws) be construed as kidnapping. And in itself is traumatic for a child. However that usually is up to the court system to decide. Even if it isnt technically criminal, it is highly immoral. I would certainly take this to the school board, get the other parents involved, and go higher if I had to. In the mean time, I would be in contact with a lawyer. These actions seem to constitute bullying by the administrators. Furthermore by telling one parent that their child should not hang out with yours they are proving to be no better than children, perpetuating the ostracizing of a child from her peers…..
Im sorry that the school has treated your daughter as such. And keep fighting.
Hopefully my son never has to encounter this, however if he has to, I am sure to teach him that he does not have to tolerate such bullying. Im not advocating defiance, however I am advocating knowing your rights, and standing up for yourself….. I was in a similar situation in high school, however I was older and knew what rights I had. As well as just enough confidence in myself, in what I know, and in my support system at home to know I could stand up for myself….
Good luck.
Rebecca, we also could not believe a school admin would go out of their way to tell another parent who their kid should hang around with. Kids this age are at a very fragile time of their lives and as you point out probably do not yet understand their rights. And I can’t imagine how it is for those kids to be forced to sit in a room until they give in, particularly if they would not feel comfortable going home and sharing what happened to them. I also hated and felt very uncomfortable having to tell my kids certain adults with authority at their school cannot be trusted and are not acting responsibly. Thanks for your support.
Good for you for standing up for your daughter's rights! After hearing your story… I will make it a point to tell my teen that under no circumstances is she to give out any passwords for her phone or Facebook! She will be instructed to call me immediately! Thank you for going public with your story!
Deb, thanks for your support, and I hope our story helps others be better prepared than we were.
This is the part I have a problem with as a parent. As the parent it is our responsibility to teach morals and ethics to our children according to our beliefs! It is the school's job to educate them. I realize that some parents leave this up to the schools but those who don't should be outraged at this!
Melody, that is exactly what I tried to explain to the principal, and he just refused to acknowledge or agree with it. I guess I was fortunate that he at least gave in and agreed to call me first whenever something happens with my children.
Perhaps if monitoring were done regularly at home, it wouldn't be an issue for the school to manage. My son will be a student at South next year and I look forward to working with the staff. I have very high standards for my son. If things like this were discussed in front of him I would want it handled. It is not just a matter of your daughters rights, what about the rights of the other students that are being distracted be her personal information that she made a choice to make public.
Lisa
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. As for me, I prefer to be called and be given the choice to parent my own child but do respect that other parents might prefer to have the school take care of issues. My point to them was we should be given that choice. And this did not involve a public post but all of her private messages (equivalent to email).
I applaud your courage to take action when ation is called for. Of course, I do not know all the facts, yet, just the fact that the 2 specific things happened to your daughter (being "forced" to give up her password and access to her PASSWORD ROTECTED area on FB, and that a school representative took part in bullying your daughter by advising another student not to associate with her) are abhorrent at best, witch-huntery, at worst.
How scary that we entrust our children's well being to these small minded individuals.
Best of luck to you in your journey through the muck and mire that has become the issue of civil rights, human rights.
I hope your children will also learn and grow from this situation, with no lasting "scars".
Janet
Janet, It is unfortunate that the people who are saying they are trying to prevent bullying seem to end up the bullies themselves. We were already a close family, but each struggle and challenge in our lives, although awful to experience, has helped to bring us even closer. The hardest part now has been getting my daughter to ignore them enough to let the education process happen. Thanks for your support and thoughts.
Still at conference but wanted to again say how much we appreciate everyone's thoughts. An attorney at our conference who teaches first amendment rights just told me their actions were a clear violation of 4 th amendment rights. Hopefully the proposed legislation will help them better understand these types of situations.
Absolutely repulsive! Its becoming an alarming trend where principles and other school officials are playing moral police, judge, and jury. Just the other day a young boy was suspended because he dared have his favorite ball players image shaved into his head. Why? A teacher felt it was innapropriate. Its not his/her business! In my day, which im only 33, the principle took action if there was a fight, or cursing at a teacher..IE bad discipline. Now however, they have taken it to the extreme such as this. I understand they need to institute some level of decorum and what not, however they have NO right to discipine a child if the child does something that the school official "feels" is innapropriate. If a child is making violent threats, I can understand intervention or further investigation by the school. But a rumor, about something off campus, is not grounds for any type of intervention by the school, that onus falls to the parents. The rights of parents should supercede any schools, and that includes discipline for off campus activity. One exception would be a violent threat of some sort (death list, bomb threat, etc..you catch the drift). Its something ive noticed of late, via the media, that schools have become rather fascist and draconian. Its something that needs to be addressed via legislation, otherwise it will just continue.
I commend you for your efforts to stand up not only for your children, but for others as well! I dont have kids, but if I did I would be just as upset as you are if not more.
David, thanks so much for your support. It’s unfortunate we have to pass legislation to force people to do something that just makes sense.
This type of creepiness is part of the reason I homeschool. The public school system is awful.
donna s: I think homeschooling is a great option and wish I could do that. It’s interesting that until several years ago, we had all the kids in a private Catholic school. When we moved we could not afford to enroll them in a private school so sent them to the public one. At a Catholic school, one does expect the school to be more involved in a child’s private life. And we found the Catholic school did a great job doing this in a positive way that included parents in the equation – probably due to years of figuring out how best to do this. I guess that’s why public schools should not be doing it – they are not properly trained to do so. Thanks for posting!
Thank you so much for taking the risk to share this story. I completely agree with you and appreciate this "heads up" about how children's and families' rights to privacy are being abused. I work hard to protect my children's privacy on the internet and this is one more thing to be aware of and educate my kids about before it becomes a problem for them and us. I hope your daughter and family can get past this terrible experience and move forward as a stronger family unit because of it.
Angles360, thanks so much for your post and support! It is disturbing to realize you can do all that to protect your privacy, and then have someone who is in a trust position invade it without your knowledge or permission.
@John Stringer
"TEACH !! I find that enough of them have a hard enough time at doing that …."
Seriously, was that glib parting shot necessary/pertinent/ or relevant?
"School officials" most commonly refers to administrators – not teachers.
Don, this was definitely an issue with the school admins, not the teachers. It seems like all the teachers I talk to about this get it. Maybe because they go through so much training related to these issues. I also hang out online in some education circles and have been amazed and inspired by teachers who are leading in innovation and handling of new technology. There never seems to be school admins in those communities – always just the teachers.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I've forwarded to my 13 year old so that I can talk to her about making sure she "lawyers up" if she is in the same situation. To me the whole thing seems outrageous, and the school response arrogant.
I want to point out to Anne Bourgrine that if, as you say there should be no expectation of privacy on Facebook, then why did the school need to have the help of a 13 year old to gain access to the information? We tell our kids not to post anything they wouldn't say in public, but. Facebook is used by many as a tool to communicate to friends and family, which is a different sort of public. Faceless school administrators are not members.
Morgan, hopefully legislators will include schools in their Bill so that none of us have to worry about it again. Thanks so much for posting!
The person who demanded the password should be sued, along with the School Board and the County. What are they going to demand next? Your bank pin to see what the kid spends their money on, your hotmail password to read your mail? "What's in your wallet" could become more than just a brand logo. Contact ACLU at http://www.aclu.org and see if they can help.
Robert, we are hoping that the legislation proposed at the Federal level will help to address this since schools like ours will not. The legislation is important because it will help more people than just those at our school. And we had the same thoughts as you – where will they stop if allowed to continue with these practices. In Australia, a principal just announced she is expelling students just because they have a FB page which is incredible. I certainly don’t want this to escalate to that level in the U.S.
This school's policy is completely bizarre. If a student is complaining of something another child has done to them on Facebook, the school can investigate the Facebook account of the complaining child with that student's permission. They don't need to call in the student who has supposedly been doing something terrible online and demand that person's passwords. Similarly if a student is accused of sending inappropriate texts on his/her phone, the child complaining about the text (who has presumably seen the texts in question on their phone, a friend's, a classmate's, etc.) can give the administrators permission to check his/her own phone. I see no reason why the school would need to investigate by holding a child hostage until passwords are provided.
And regardless, it doesn't even sound like this particular child was actually accused of doing anything online. If I'm following correctly, another child said something about her in a verbal conversation and that triggered the FB investigation. It's all too weird. I'm surprised these school administrators are grown men – they seem more like 12 year old girls themselves. The sound like they are feeding the junior high drama rather than reining it in.
Jane – we also thought the policy very strange and inappropriate and feeding into the drama as you say. From what I understand, there were no messages exchanged between my daughter and the person spreading this rumor. So that was why they could not just look at his FB pages. They said they looked at hers as part of their investigation to see if the rumor was true. So you are right that my daughter did nothing online that was wrong. If she had a diary they could get their hands on, I am sure they would have demanded that too. Their refusal to call a parent first is what is so strange – almost like they don’t want us knowing about it.
Man, this is messed up. Reading between the lines it sounds to me as if the staff at your school find focusing on the drama of their student's lives more important than their work. I've noticed this myself at the small schools in my area and it bothers me, not sure how you can change that mindset. Especially when it's at an administrative level like this and influences the hiring of employees. Birds of a feather flock together, you know. Sad. Best of luck to you and your family and thank you for speaking out. It takes courage.
Kim (@2:01pm) – we’ve also had the same perception that the school officials (not the teachers) seem to be more interested in immersing themselves in the drama than in the education. One of my main concerns I shared with them when we met was that this whole thing drastically affected my daughter’s grades. They really didn’t address it nor seemed concerned about that aspect of it and their only suggestion was to allow her to see a different counselor. Although at least that counselor seems to be one of the few admins there who is acting appropriately and doing a good job. But the educational part of it all was glossed over.
I found several things in the comments here bothersome
1. The person saying the author is acting on hearsay; In addition to verifying these things with another mother, the school officials acknowledged this is their standard policy. That DOES NOT equal hearsay. Hearsay is acting like they did based upon a RUMOR.
2. The author is teaching her kids not to respect authority; I am MY kids authority. Not the state, not the public school system. I am entrusting my children to them TEMPORARILY for the purpose of EDUCATING them only. Not so they can decide the morals my children taught or how they are corrected for transgressing them.
3. FB posts are not private; WRONG. As someone pointed out, there are privacy settings the user has control over. This fits the legal definition of a "resonable expectation of privacy". Yes, FB as a company then has acssess to it, but that is not what is the issue here. And just because it may be true that you should never put anything on the internet you don't want the world to see, that DOES NOT mean it is permissible for ANYONE to demand you surrender personal information so they can snoop on you. The mere fact that the school could not acssess these posts without this child's OWN PERSONAL PRIVATE PASSWORDS shows beyond doubt it is not, in fact, "out there for the world to see".
4. "If you are doing something that you don't want your parents or teachers to find out about, then what you are doing is WRONG". To use an example the author used, suppose a child is posting about being sad over a parents divorce. That kind of thing they may not want teachers or parents to know, but since they have control over which of their FB friends see stuff, be okay with their FB friends seeing it. Please tell me how that constitutes the the child doing something wrong. But that is not even the most important point here. What is, is that EVEN IF THE CHILD IS doing something "wrong" , SCHOOL OFFICIALS DO NOT GET JURISDICTION over that. Once my child walks out of that school door at the end of the day, they are back IN MY CARE, and the school gets no say over that (obviously, as has also been mentioned, in the event of threats of violence, it is a very different story)
5. "what about the rights of the other students that are being distracted be her personal information that she made a choice to make public?" There is NO SUCH RIGHT. No one, no where, has a right to be protected against NOT BEING DISTRACTED. That is pure absurdity. NOWHERE in the Constitution is a "right not to be distracted" guaranteed. However, in addition to a right to free speech, the Constitution DOES say that citizens have a right to BE SECURE IN THEIR PERSONS and are protected from unreasonable search and seizure, which behavior like this from employers & school clearly is. If you feel that way, either teach your children how to exercise enough control over their own persons they don't get distracted, or go raise them in a cave, because if they are going to exist in society, they are going to hear people talking about doing things you've taught them not to.
7. "Perhaps if monitoring were done regularly at home, it wouldn't be an issue for the school to manage". How do you know it wasn't??? For all you know, THEY WERE. A few of you insinuated this is because the girl herself was behaving immorally. This point is irrelevant- although as was stated, there was no bullying or threatening going on & this was all done because of a RUMOR- because, guess what? That is absolutley, positively, 100% NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. The same way it was absolutley, positively, 100% none of the schools business, IF IT HAPPENED OUT OF SCHOOL. Unless a child is being abused or neglected- and that can be proven- the school does not have a right to interfere in how a parent chooses to raise their child, including whether or not she is punished for something.
I am sorry if I sound excessively angry, but, well, I am. Please forgive me if I went on too long. I have just far, FAR too many stories like this in the news. Last year, my husbands company attempted to force all of their employees to sign a contract stating they would not post on FB, ever. Even in their down time at home, even when it had nothing to do with work. When the company failed to get that to go anywhere because of how absurd it was, they forced employees to sign a document stating if they post on FB they would inlcude the words "This is my personal opinion that in now way reflects on XYZ, Inc". Whether the post had anything to do with work or not. And it was sign it or you're fired. Just because technology has advanced to the point that employers, school & even (or, especially) the government can have acssess to what people are doing in saying in their personal lives, does not mean it should be right or legal for them to do it
B – you make some great points and appreciate you sharing them here. That is amazing about what is happening at the place where your husband works, and it is a good example of why legislation to address these issues is desperately needed. It's just too bad we cannot seem to rely on employers and schools to assess these issues and implement good policy on their own.
First, it's the internet. If your family is publishing things on the internet that they are not comfortable with the world seeing. DON'T publish it on the internet. Most companies hire people whose main job is to search social media sites for info about you. This tells them if you are the kind of employee that they want to hire. If you hadn't taught her that, good thing someone else did. The internet ISN'T private! When a student posted a death wish about me on her private locked FB page… I didn't have to go to the principal for them to ask to see it. It was easy. A FB friend of hers allowed me to see their page because they were upset about the post. Which should show you that FB isn't private. Don't post what you don't want strangers seeing.
Kim, I totally agree that if you post something in a public area online like your wall in FB, you should expect everyone can see it. And as you point out, even if you only let friends on FB see your wall, all someone has to do is find someone who is friends with you to see it. But in my daughter’s case, the messages they had looked at were the private messages that you can only see if you are the actual person with that account. This is why they are requiring the kids to open up the account to let them look through those messages – not the wall posts. And you make a good point about being aware that companies are searching these sites to get information about people – we all need to keep that in mind.
This was actually quite interesting; a child was alledgedly abused by the system and a person with a blog had something interesting to write about. Without sharing the specifics, you were able to outrage and scare several parents. With whatever did happen, my only comment is that many parents do not teach morals etc..at home but the schools are always easier targets than parents. I don’t agree with the tactics reportedly used by your school in Geneva but maybe using your blog to teach children what material would be considered appropriate in social media would be more beneficial…not as controversial of course…
Tom, our purpose was most definitely not to scare or outrage anyone. One of the reasons we thought it was important to put it on this blog was that one of the blog’s main purposes is to inform people in government about new technology and help them understand it and how to use it. So because we focus on adults here, we really had not considered reaching out online to kids about these issues. But once I read your comment, I realized you are so right – kids do need somewhere online to get this type of information. I’ll have to discuss it with my family to see if it would be something they would feel comfortable doing. Thanks so much!
"Then the vice principal called me to demand I come to the school immediately to read through her private messages."
Is it me, or did several of the commentors here completely skp over the words PRIVATE MESSAGES? Not status updates or posts. Please read for comprehension, not to validate your own assumptions.
Now that I've gotten that off my chest, let me say thank you for making me aware of this issue. I have a 13-soon-to-be-14 year old, and we will be having a discussion about her right to privacy shortly. I plan to make it clear to her that if an administrator or official needs to look into any of her PRIVATE MESSAGES, i.e. texts, IM's, or email, (in plain english: anything password protected) they need to contact ME first.
Educators educate. I RAISE MY CHILDREN.
B. Nicole – After this happened I had to apologize to my kids for telling them all of their lives to always do what the people at school tell them and to respect them. I had taken this position because I trusted that the adults at school would be responsible and do the right thing, and I never wanted my child to cause problems – just go to school and learn. I’ve managed to get one child into college with no school related problems and another is about to graduate in a few days and has had no problems. My third has Down Syndrome so these types of issues probably will never affect him. So after all that, I was unprepared for seeing adults handle something like this in this manner. So now with the remaining three kids I have unfortunately had to do a 180 on my instructions and tell them they cannot trust anyone at the middle school (the high school and elementary have actually been awesome). It shouldn’t be like that but I don’t know what else to do but as you suggest and make it clear to them they cannot listen to the admins at the middle school with these types of issues and to call me if they are forced to do anything.
Thanks so much for your comments.
I am a graduate from all of the Geneva schools, and I am familiar with the administrator in question. This is so horrible to hear, but also frustrating to me to know that injustices and invasions of privacy are still happening on a regular basis. Nothing seems to have changed, except possibly for the worse. While peer bullying was a huge issue while I was a student, I felt the most bullied by the administration.
For those saying that Facebook is public information— I agree to an extent. Wall postings, status updates, information posted publicly is all fair game. However messages are just as private as e-mail. If the girl in question had taken measures to make her page private from those who are not her friends then that needs to be respected. Bottom line, this is a parental issue, not a school issue.
Now that I am older I am very jealous of those who are proud of where they came from and where they went to school. I could not be more ashamed of where I spent my formative educational years. If I could do it all over again I would, and I would never have gone there. My parents feel the same way, wishing they had opted for private school or relocation.
I understand your reasons for not getting litigious, but you are in a position to where you may be able to make a difference for future generations and students. This administration and school board are highly abusive and inept, and without outside intervention it seems nothing will change. Thier injustices are self perpetuating and they will continue to allow students to be terroized in an environment they are supposed to be safe in.
Anyway, good for you to bringing these issues to light. A lot of parents do not have the courage to do so which allows these people to get away with most of the horrible things they do.
L – thanks for sharing your experience although I am sorry to hear it was so negative. We are hoping that by sharing our story the legislation will end up including K to 12 which will help improve the situation. But it is difficult to do because it does open our family to scrutiny even though we have done nothing at all wrong. And unfortunately I think you are right that people who do bad things get away with it because people are scared to speak up.
Reading comprehension fail, Kim. Her child didn’t post anything on facebook. The administrators decided to snoop into her Facebook to investigate a verbal rumor.
My children are only recently out of the public school system – the youngest graduated last year – but I would have been livid if I found out they had done such a thing. Can I ask – have you consulted a lawyer about this? Spoken with the district superintendent? Heck, even the media?
As a former educator myself, I cannot imagine doing this to a child, and I taught at risk children, so I was privy to information about my students most teachers where not. I also had my students tell me things in confidence that to this day I have not shared with anyone (with the exception of one case where a student threatened bodily harm to himself.)
The audacity of these counselors and this principal. The sheer gall. I have no more words.
You have my utmost sympathy and full support in taking these people on.
Lisa – I tried to do what I thought was the responsible thing and first make sure my daughter had done nothing wrong which the principal assured me she had not. Then I tried discussing my concerns with him. And you probably read his response about not stopping except with my children and only because I made it clear he didn’t have my permission to do this. When I found out the counselor had told that mother to not have her daughter hang out with my child, I tried calling a school board member who referred me to the district superintendent. I met with the supt and the principal. But neither admitted their actions were wrong and they said no one ever said anything to another mother. So at this point, all I could believe is that not only would they not acknowledge they needed some education in how to handle this, but they were willing to lie about their actions. I hesitated to pursue litigation because I prefer to discuss and work things out. But I also know I cannot work out anything if someone is willing to lie. Soon after I found out about the legislative bills and decided I would try to encourage legislators to add K-12 to the bill and perhaps that would help solve the issue.
Others I know in the education system have expressed thoughts to me that are similar to those you shared. And all teachers I have talked to get it so to me it seems like an admin problem.
Thanks so very much for responding and your support!
Ms. Broviak, unless today is a paid vacation day for you, I kindly request that you pursue your personal matters on your personal time, not on the Geneva taxpayers' time. At the very least, post your replies after business hours, eh?
Llochmann, Because I did take vacation/personal days this week to attend the conference on my own time and at my own cost, I thought it would be ok to respond those two brief times during a break in the conference and at lunch. I apologize if this has offended you or anyone else or if you believe I have acted improperly by doing so.
"At the very least, post your replies after business hours, eh?"
Yes, please do. A lot of people are thrilled to know there are other people besides ourselves who recognize this is unacceptable and needs to be stopped. So please, for our benefit, keep posting.
Thanks B for posting – We decided to share because Bradley Shear, the attorney trying to help promote the federal bill, said there were no stories out there so legislators didn’t realize schools needed to be added. Even though our sharing is difficult for us to do, we thought the bill important enough to do this if it helps its passage. Everyone’s response has now also convinced us it was also needed because many were not aware it is going on.
I commented on this on my blog. http://manjushri924.blogspot.com/2012/05/creepiness-curmie-two-nominees.html
Best wishes to you and your daughter.
Pam, I hope you and your daughter continue to see the positive outcomes from having the courage to share your story. While the incident was painful for both you and her, your experience will have a great impact on many, many students around the country. Thanks so much for being brave enough to share, and standing up for your/her rights! I can't believe I came across an article about you on the web! http://mobile.salon.com/2012/05/18/when_the_school_is_the_bully/singleton/
Lisa
Lisa, your comments and support mean so much to me – I realize you have a unique perspective on all this. The decision to go public was risky and difficult for our family because as you can imagine even though we did nothing wrong at all, it opens us up to scrutiny and potential criticism and possibly even attacks by the school (although they would probably be behind the scenes). But as some people pointed out, my daughter experienced this as a bullying incident and had all the feelings associated with going through that – unfortunately in this case it is the school admins who were the bullies. I had written this post in an effort to at least try to convince government/school admins that there is a need to consider the legality and consequences of doing something like this. But after speaking with Bradley Shear, we ended up agreeing with him that we needed to share the story through a national outlet to help make a difference for the most people. This affected my daughter so severely we thought no other child or family should have to go through this.
Pam, I think we ALL can learn a lesson from this. Everyone should DELETE their private messages/chat after reading. We are all subject to hacking" on facebook, deliberate or not. What you post on your wall is not private, what you post in messaging /chat is. If you want to keep it that way-DELETE it. How many times have we forgotten to log off Facebook and had someone using our computer gain access to our information?
Susan – that is an excellent idea! I am going to make sure my daughter starts to do just that. Thanks!
Facebook is NOT private nor was it ever meant to be. It is a social media site- social meaning to be shared. Kids, and many immature adults, forget this and publish was too much information or insult/ bully others. Anyone your daughter is friend’s with and possibly even friends of friends can see her “private” page. Never mind that there is a minimum age for Facebook which many kids lie about in order to obtain, but why not set boundaries for her about when it’s appropriate to access. I taught middle school for years and, believe it or not, teachers and administrators could not care less about your child’s social life until it affects others. I’ve seen multiple scenarios where a child reports that another child threatened or bullied them via the Internet. Then, administrators have asked to see their FB. We’ve also, with a police officer present, asked to see phones when someone told us a student possessed nude pictures of another student. Principals and teachers deal with a lot of nonsense and the majority are trying to protect students so it’s frustrating when parents make them out to be bad. If your daughter went to the office and complained that another student called her a whore of FB, you’d likely be up in arms if the school failed to investigate. It’s a double-edged sword that makes a lot of teachers want to look away in cases like this. I am also a parent of a middle schooler and have warned him that someone might ask to see his phone if he gets caught using it in class- which is a violation of his school policy. You cannot imagine how many kids cheat via texting in class. Anyway, you can also teach your daughter to respectfully decline re person who asks for her phone and to request a parent be called. If this is happening as much as you say, you should have already discussed the possibility and prepares her in how you’d like her to respond. Clearly, she’s not too intimidated by authority or she would not have been Facebooking at school.
Oh, and yes, I read the private messages part; however, cyber bullying laws do not exclude emails or texts. Have you addressed why they asked to see her phone? And, in case some don’t know, schools are held liable if they do not take cases of cyber bullying seriously. Again, double-edged sword.
Brook, I did talk to the principal and then later met with him and the supt. He said they only looked at it to determine if the rumor the person was spreading was true. It all had nothing to do with cyberbullying; they said my daughter had done nothing wrong; and my daughter did none of the posting while at school. I agree with you that anything posted, even if the page is made private, could be potentially seen by anyone, and if she had done it at school, this would not have even been an issue because I believe that would have been wrong. But in this case, the post was not done on school time and it was not on her private page, but in her messages which are like email – only she can see them. I also agree with you on the phone situation – I think as you said, they just need to call a parent for something that is not a school infraction or emergency. And I don’t think they should have it in class if it is a method for cheating. I think your advice is good about teaching kids how to properly and respectfully respond if a situation like this comes up. Thanks so much for posting!
Have you taken a look at the bill Missouri passed this past year regarding Facebook? I was very impressed with parts of the bill. It did a great job at making educators distance themselves from students and social media. There were a couple of questionable areas – what if teachers and parents were friends – but it did a great job of attempting to address some of these issues.
Veterkins – Thanks for sharing information about that bill – I just Googled it and came up with this article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/03/missouri-facebook-law_n_916716.html. With all this fast changing technology it seems so very important for everyone to work together as a team to understand it and establish guidance. It’s great Missouri is addressing it and providing leadership. Hopefully they will continue to keep an open dialogue on the issue as it changes and evolves and everyone gains a better understanding of its use.