Polk County Education
12A Polk County Itemizer-Observer • December 21, 2016
Falls City schools decline additional social media moderation
By Jolene Guzman
The Itemizer-Observer
FALLS CITY — The Falls
City School District decided
to pass on implementing a
program to “data mine” and
monitor social media activi-
ty within its boundaries or
about its schools.
Called “location-based
social media monitoring,”
the service uses software
available through several
companies to collect social
media posts containing
key words designated by
the school district or
agency.
Falls City Superintendent
Jack Thompson said exam-
ples include searching for
the words “gun” or “suicide”
a n d “ Fa l l s C i t y H i g h
School.”
“We would be able to see
what’s going on, what’s
being posted on Facebook
and all these kinds of
things,” he said.
Thompson said, at first
glance, it seems like a useful
tool for early intervention in
possible school violence or
for students contemplating
harming themselves.
“The issue with it is you
have to monitor it,” he said.
“If you choose to use it, you
have to monitor it, which
means we have to an em-
ployee monitor all of the
Facebook posts and every-
thing else that this thing
data mines.”
An assessment by lawyers
for the Willamette Education
Service District, to which the
district belongs, said dis-
tricts that use the software
could put themselves at
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legal risk.
Paul A. Dakopolos, of Gar-
rett Hemann Robertson,
which represents the WESD,
wrote in his analysis of using
the program that there is
nothing illegal about collect-
ing information posted on
social media because Ore-
gon courts have found users
“don’t have a reasonable ex-
pectation of privacy in the
information that they post
publicly.”
“On the other hand, if a
district makes the choice to
use a service … then fails to
take appropriate action on a
known threat to a school …
there may be liability of the
district’s failure to act,”
Dakopolos wrote.
School officials believe
there is a less-intrusive way
to gather the same informa-
tion: Maintaining close rela-
tionships with students and
parents.
Jami Kidd, Falls City
School Board chairwoman,
said Falls City is a close-knit
community where school
employees know and take
an interest in students.
Sh e a d d e d s o m e o n e
probably already knows a
student is struggling before
they would post it to social
media.
Thompson had another
concern about the use of the
software.
“For me, I look at this and
I’m not ready for school dis-
tricts to be big brother. I’m
really not,” he said. “Police
agencies have been using in-
formation like this for years.
In my personal opinion, this
is not an area that schools
need to get into.”