Student Board Member: Social Media as an Assault Tool

It was the day after a school board meeting this past February when my cellphone suddenly started buzzing uncontrollably with notifications. A few tweets and mentions after a meeting are always expected, but this time, the number and intensity of the comments were different.

The elected student member of my local board of education, I opened my Twitter home page to find the culprit: a 15-second video of me acting as the only member of the board expressing support for keeping our mask mandate to stem the spread of COVID-19 in the Montgomery County Public Schools, located just outside Washington, D.C.