The school’s Parent Teacher Handbook states:
We believe children have a right to privacy. Pictures of children on social media will often become the property of the social media platform and can easily be abused by third parties. The school will as a general rule only post pictures on the web if those pictures do not show the faces of the children clearly (typically from behind, showing what the hands are doing in order to demonstrate work) unless the express permission of the parents has been obtained after discussing the purpose of the particular picture with the parents.
Parents commit not to post pictures on social media or open websites of children other than their own from school or school-organized events unless with the express permission of the parent(s) of the children in the picture. Parents commit to not use social media or open websites to identify locations and times of excursions and field trips before the event takes place. Parents commit to not identify, on social media or on open websites, the names of students other than their own when in a school setting unless with the express permission of the parent(s) of such children.
Parents, with regards to pictures of their own children, have to decide what practice to adopt. In the interest of the safety of our students, we encourage parents to pay attention to the risks associated with posting pictures of children along with their names, and to be aware of the potential misuse and manipulation of pictures of children online. We encourage parents to think about the purpose of the pictures they post (pictures to grandparents can be safely emailed, for example, rather than posted on an open Facebook page). It is very easy for anyone to use pictures and comments on social media to obtain a child’s picture, name, address, and school location (using services such as www.whitepages.com). You would not hand a picture of your child with her name and address out to strangers on the street; consider what you are doing online.
The school’s interest in the use of social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) is solely school-related. We consider the privacy and safety of the students more important than the marketing value we could derive from the use of social media and open websites. We focus our online communications to our own website, where we can control the content, in the interest of the students.
This policy is based on the following considerations:
Specifically: