An electronic and digital communication policy at Newcastle Public Schools is being studied and changed in order to comply with State law, to ensure the safety of teachers and students, and to include the students’ parents in any communication.
To aid in the process, the NPS Board of Education, in their July 16 regular meeting, adopted School Wise as the communication method of choice. However, they did not feel comfortable with wording of a social media policy that was sent out by the Oklahoma State School Boards Association. They’ll continue to study the policy until they can discuss again at the August board meeting.
School Board President Tiffany Elcyzyn said that between the teachers, the coaches and extra-curricular activities, the students and parents had to have six or seven apps on their phones for communication purposes. The decision to use School Wise as the sole source of electronic or digital communication will help ensure that teachers are no longer texting directly with their students.
Also during the July 16 meeting, the board discussed the school’s policy on electronic or digital communication and tabled the discussion in order to send it back to the policy review committee, where they will dig deeper into it, Elcyzyn said. The board was also not comfortable with this language sent to the school district by the OSSBA. The policy review committee is made up of two board of education members, the site principals, Superintendent Dr. Cathy Walker, Assistant Superintendent Kristi Ferguson, and Executive Director of Academics Jonathan Atchley.
“We already had a policy in place, but we are now tweaking it and making it more specific to make sure we are in line with State law,” Elcyzyn said.
Elcyzyn said teachers and students just don’t need to be on each other’s social media. She said the board understands the importance of freedom of speech, but they will not condone bad behaviors.
The policy states that employees are discouraged from sharing content or comments containing the following: 1) Obscene sexual content or links to obscene sexual content.
2) Abusive behavior and bullying language or tone.
3) Conduct or encouragement of illegal activity.
4) Disclosure of any information required to be maintained as confidential by law, regulation, or internal policy.
Elcyzyn said she hopes that teachers, staff and students would keep their social media classy and professional.
The school’s policy also says that school employees reported to have engaged in electronic or digital communications that would violate this policy and State law shall be placed on administrative leave while the school district investigates the incident.
If the investigation finds that no misconduct occurred, the school employee shall be reinstated, and the incident noted in the personnel file.
