Personal Cellphone Use for Work Purposes

Legal Brief

Picture the modern school administrator. While dressed for success and undoubtedly confident, there’s a good chance he or she appears exhausted after two years of pandemic madness. If the mental image you’ve conjured is true to life, the administrator is clutching a cellphone, a tool more indispensable to carrying out daily functions than paper and pencil. Calls, texts, alerts, news and more at their fingertips 24/7 — whether they want them or not.

The utility of the cellphone is undeniable, but scant attention is given to the legal implications attached to all the school business being conducted on the device. The cellphone is often a personal device, used casually to respond to messages and crises outside the hours of the school day.

Casual and routine use has dangers, both obvious and hidden. The primary list of pitfalls is an alphabet soup of considerations — FERPA, HIPAA and FOIA to cite a few. But having awareness of these entanglements is just the first step. If your conduct becomes the focus of a legal action, your messages may end up being disclosed. 

So how does an administrator navigate these challenges effectively, while avoiding a misstep?