Schools and Social Media: The Critical Need for Verification and Dedicated Reporting Processes

AASA is proud to support Schools and Social Media: The Critical Need for Verification and Dedicated Reporting Processes, joint project led by the National School Public Relations Associations (NSPRA) and Consortium for School Network (CoSN). The project found that 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.

In a survey of school communication and school technology professionals, more than 50% of respondents indicated they have dealt with fake-official or mock accounts that impersonate their district or organization, while only a third indicated they were able to get their organization verified on various social media platforms.

Additional findings include:

• Overall, a quarter of respondents indicated that within the last two years their educational organizations have applied to be verified on social media and have been rejected (25%).
• Respondents indicated that among their educational organizations:
  • 59% have dealt with accounts that harass, intimidate or bully students.
  • 45% have dealt with social media platforms not removing reported accounts/posts that harass, intimidate or bully their students.

Help spread the word about the importance of dedicated verification and reporting processes for K-12 education institutions on social media, using this campaign toolkit to urge social media platforms to make it easier for schools to accurately represent themselves on social media and to report accounts that harass, intimidate, bully or otherwise negatively target students.