“(Students) let them see the accounts because otherwise, they are not allowed to leave the room. And that is just wrong,”
~Pam Broviak
It is simply unacceptable for any school official to ever request access to a student’s personal social media account. What a student writes on their account is not the concern of school administrators unless a student’s parent decides that they want to voluntarily give up information. It is unacceptable that teachers and administrators who are in a position of authority ever cross this line of privacy; if they have concerns – they should notify the parent directly. And it’s happening more and more.
MSNBC reports:
In a conversation with msnbc.com, Broviak said she confronted school officials about the incident involving her daughter soon after it occurred last fall and was told that they routinely investigate student issues by asking kids to log into their social networking pages — or cellphones — in the presence of administrators. And she said her daughter and other students told her they are frequently called into the principal’s office and told that they can’t leave until they surrender their passwords or unlock their phones and allow school officials to browse their personal information.
Kent Mutchler, superintendent of Geneva schools, said in an interview with msnbc.com that he couldn’t comment on Broviak’s daughter because privacy rules prevent him from publicly discussing an individual student’s situation. But he said Broviak’s description of district policy is inaccurate.
Such incidents are very rare among district middle schools, he said, contradicting Broviak’s assertion that the inspections are commonplace.
And the Huffington Post reports on another incident – article HERE:
Children’s Facebook privacy is at the center of a new lawsuit filed against Minnewaska, Minn. schools.
WDAY and CNN report that the American Civil Liberties Union is representing a 12-year-old girl who claims her school’s officials detained her and forced her to give up her Facebook password.
An ACLU news release says the student, referred to only as “R.S.” was taken into a school administrator’s office where she was “coerced” by school officials and a local deputy to give up her Facebook password “because of allegations that she had online conversations about sex with another student off-campus.” The ACLU alleges the girl was “intimidated, frightened, humiliated and sobbing”
