Legal Risks of Your Schools’ Social Platforms

SOCIAL MEDIA

It started innocently enough. The high school’s athletic director took a picture of the winning shot at that evening’s varsity basketball game and posted it to the school district’s official Instagram account. The caption read: “Congrats to Coach Jones and the Springfield boys’ varsity basketball team for another win over Shelbyville. Next stop States!”

By first period the next day, dozens of parents, students and community members were battling it out in a “comment war” below the Instagram post. Several were outraged that Coach Jones had sat three seniors on Senior Night in favor of star freshmen. Accusations of a bad team culture and counter accusations of poor coaching were flying back and forth.

The district went into damage control mode. The superintendent directed the athletic director to take down all of the comments perceived as offensive and block the originating accounts.

Soon, it was a legal matter with a massive legal bill for the district.