It's the responsibility of a school to provide a safe and secure environment for their kids. I really believe social media tell alot about a person and reveal serious concerns that can't be ignored. Through post, comment, engagement on the media, certain personalities can be revealed, personalities like bullying, harassment, violence and even the emotional and mental status of the children in such a school.
Through a search on their social media accounts, these issues can be identified and addressed before it becomes too late.
Going through the publicly available posts of students and staff is a good thing to do. It would help protect kids in many ways and provide support when necessary. Help the school identify who the teacher is thoroughly and uncover certain personalities of a person the kids. Also, teachers are role models to kids, that's why it's important to get to know the personality of the person you are keeping around kids. Their public online behavior needs to be monitored to ensure safety of kids.
For instance, a teacher's public post that promotes violence, hate speech, promotes some illegal activities like drugs, and many other issues that could affect kids negatively should be addressed before it affects kids negatively or affects the school's reputation negatively.
When it becomes disrespectful to a person is when the school begins to bridge people's privacy, for instance, requesting passwords, creating accounts that are fake to access people's private content, pressurizing students and teachers to give out their passwords for scrutiny. Any action or decision to access people's accounts should be made based on a very clear policy and respect for people's privacy and recruitment law. Cases related to children should be handled based on support and welfare, not punishment.
Counseling, guidance and education are the best way to handle cases amongst children. Instead of punishment, appropriate punishment should be given only when necessary.
This can be achieved by a routine check of their public profile, not like constant surveillance, so students and staffs could still exercise their freedom of expression or feel judged for sharing their opinions or being free on their media platforms that have nothing to do with the role they play in school.
A constant check up/ surveillance could be really inconveniencing; It should be a routine check.
Individuals still have the right to express themselves on their social platforms, the media and the Internet are beyond the school jurisdiction. Staff can express themselves and share opinions outside their professional and academic roles and activities, inasmuch as their activity doesn't affect the school, their reputation, and students, it shouldn't be an issue. The school has no right to access the private accounts of staff, their social media accounts, content or messages. Doing so is a disrespect to their fundamental human rights.
In conclusion, I believe there should only be a check in teachers and students accounts when there are suspicious activities. Also, they can also check public content and not their private content. If the publicly available content raises concerns that involve safety, then it should be looked into urgently.
Content of harassment, illegal conduct or behavior should be addressed before it affects the school community negatively.
And any intervention to address such an issue should be done with transparency, respect, support and guidance . By doing this, the school can fulfill their responsibility to protect their students and staff without compromising their privacy and freedom.
