A four-year-old boy was just recently expelled from his pre-school for a Facebook post made by his mother, Ashley Habat. According to Habat, she was running late to drop her son, Will, off at Sonshine Christian Academy on picture day. The mother mentioned to the administrator during check-in that the school did not give her enough notice about picture day and that she wasn't prepared for it. The administrator made minimal comment, saying "well, we put it in his folder last week." Later that day, the woman felt the need to vent via Facebook, posting a (what she dubbed as "private") status that read, "why is it that every single day there is something new I dislike about Will's school? Are my standards really too high or are people working in the education field really just that ignorant?" and tagged the school in the post. The next morning, she was asked to stop by the office after dropping her son off and received a letter of dismissal from the school, stating that the parent-school relationship was not very good and that her son was thereby expelled. This has not been the only case of students being punished by schools for social media posts. This past spring, several Texas high-schoolers were suspended for favoriting "HS Confessions" tweets on Twitter, along with many other cases.
I think that sometimes schools abuse their power by trying to control the social media of students and families of their students. How do you feel about schools monitoring student social media? Why do you think they do this?
Replies
Well done and excellent topic! Free speech for students is limited, especially inside the school. Outside the school is a tougher road for schools to win. Social media, being a relatively new phenomanon, is one that I am sure we will see many cases on in the future. Schools can suspend/expel students for whatever reason and if the student/family does nothing, it just happens. It takes strong individuals and families to fight back if they truly believe that the school is wrong.
The school should be able to see what people do on social media. Employers check peoples social media accounts so that is a reason to be careful what you put.
She shouldn't have tagged the school otherwise they would have never known. The boy shouldn't have been expelled because of that Facebook post.
I don't think that she should have tagged the school in the post because she should have known that they were going to see it. It was kind of crazy to kick the kid out of the school for something the mother did.
It sounds like the school is abusing its power just to keep a better outlook of themselves. They shouldn't be able to monitor Facebook and even then it was her opinion.
I don't think that schools should monitor social media. I think that they do it because they don't want anyone talking bad about them for the world to read.
The woman tagged the school in her post. I believe that, while she has the right to vent, she posted something that they would probably see as rude and tagged the school in it. She obviously hadn't cared, maybe even hoped, that they would read it.
Yes, she did vent - and it was definitely a mistake on her part by tagging the school. Had she not tagged them in the post, I don't think it would have been such a big deal, but unfortunately she did and her son ended up in trouble for it.
I think that the schools shouldn't be allowed to expel students because of the things that they do on social media. I think that they monitor it because they don't want someone talking bad about them on the internet.
I think that schools shouldn't be able to monitor kids' social media because that is their personal life and unless it is harming them they shouldn't have to do with it because it doesn't involve them. I think they try to protect the kids' personal information.
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