ATLIS Support Efforts in Advocating for Dedicated Social Media Verification and Reporting Processes for K-12 Education Institutions

“Our school hasn’t been able to get verified on social media. When stakeholders see fake-official district accounts, it can lead to chaos via misinformation and disinformation.”

Sound familiar? 

How about, "We have reported accounts and individual photos to social media platforms without success of getting them removed. These bullying accounts have a huge negative impact on the mental health of our students.”

Over the last few years, communication with students, families and stakeholders has become more important than ever. While the instantaneous and widely accessible nature of social media makes it a powerful tool to engage school communities in local education, districts and independent schools across the country have found it difficult to accurately represent themselves on social media platforms and to report accounts that harass, intimidate, bully or otherwise negatively target students.

More than just a nuisance, the lack of dedicated verification and reporting processes for federally recognized K-12 education institutions on social media platforms is causing a strain on school districts around the country. With administrators spending countless hours each year reporting malicious accounts—some that impersonate school leaders and spread false information, some that show embarrassing photos of students, some that use footage of other districts’ students to mischaracterize local schools—and training staff on how help report accounts, districts are struggling to prevent the harm these can cause to students and staff.

It’s time for a solution. 

With support from ATLIS and other national education association partners, the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) and Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) reached out over the summer to several social media platforms—including Meta (Facebook, Instagram), Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn—to both assess their awareness and to collaboratively identify current and potential solutions.

We invite you explore the new Schools and Social Media: The Critical Need for Verification and Dedicated Reporting Processes report, which includes both the findings of school communication and school technology professionals indicating the wide-ranging number of barriers faced by school districts in verification and reporting processes as well as responses from social media platforms.