The Communications Department will own and regularly maintain and monitor any District-level accounts on third-party social-media sites. Social media is not intended to be used for policy decisions or items of legal and fiscal significance that have not been previously released to the public. Posting content via social media does not constitute giving official notice to the District, and all such inquiries should be directed to the appropriate program.

All staff members shall adhere to applicable Professional Code of Conduct laws; Policy 5253 Maintaining Professional Staff/Student Boundaries; Policy 2022 Electronic Information System (K-20 Network); and the Electronic Resources Use Permission Form, (2022P) whenever using District computers or networks to access third-party social-media sites or whenever conducting job-related (and therefore public) activity on social-media sites. All students shall adhere to Policy 2022 and the User Release Form (2022 F) whenever using District computers or networks to access third-party social media sites.

School board members should avoid any use of social media that would violate open public meetings laws.

The District’s use of social media is limited to promoting the mission and goals of the District. While the District may choose to allow user-generated content on its social-media sites, by doing so the District does not intend to create an open public forum for speech. Nor does the District express approval or support for the views expressed by third-parties that appear on its social-media sites.

The District reserves the right to remove inappropriate comments posted on social media it has created or owns and remove comments that are not relevant to the topic of the specific forum. This includes user-generated content that has obscene language or sexual content, threatens or defames any person or organization, violates the legal ownership interest of another party, supports or opposes political candidates or ballot propositions, promotes illegal activity, promotes commercial services or products, or is not topically related to the particular posting, or contains contents that promote, foster, or perpetuate discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, age, religion, gender, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, national origin, physical or mental disability, or sexual orientation. The District will not, however, remove otherwise permissible comments based on viewpoint.

The District will post notice on its social-media sites indicating the circumstances under which user-generated content will be removed. The District will also post, where feasible, notice on its social-media sites alerting users that all content related to District business on the site is a public record, subject to retention and disclosure. Social media content shall be preserved in accord with the applicable retention schedule, and in a format that preserves the integrity of the original record and is easily accessible. This policy applies to third-party hosted and internal social media tools that the District chooses to utilize. This includes social-media tools that are hosted on District servers or networks, which are not accessible by the public.

Disciplinary Action
Violation of any of the conditions explained in the Social-Media Policy and Procedures by District employees could be cause for disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment.

Violation of any of the conditions explained in the Social-Media Policy and Procedures by District students could be cause for disciplinary action, including suspension or expulsion from school and suspension or revocation of network and computer access privileges.

Highline School District 401
Adopted by the Superintendent: August 2013