The Jamestown School Committee took a first reading of a new social media and website policy at its July 30 meeting, a document a subcommittee spent roughly a year drafting after state education lawyers urged districts to adopt one.
According to the Jamestown School Committee's published meeting recording, the draft would replace the district's existing one-page website and social media content policy. Committee members were told the earlier version dated from an era when individual teachers built their own websites, a practice a member described as largely obsolete.
A first reading means no vote was taken. The committee was told it could not act on the policy until its next business meeting, scheduled for Thursday, August 20 at Town Hall, which the recording indicates will start at 6 p.m.
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The draft sets expectations for how staff use school department social media accounts and for any site a teacher creates for a classroom. A member outlining the document said it requires parental consent before a student can be included in a teacher-created site, and that teachers would be responsible for maintaining those permissions much like a field trip permission slip.
The draft also assigns take-down responsibility. A member said teachers would be required to remove a site once the event it was built for has ended, explaining that the district does not want accounts lingering online indefinitely.
Members described the result as long and dense. One said she wished the document were shorter but believed the length was necessary. The stated purpose, per the recording, is both protecting students and protecting faculty by setting clear expectations for conduct on district accounts.
How the district got here
The recording is explicit about what prompted the work. A member said the effort began after a joint legal conference in October at which attorneys presenting to school officials strongly recommended that districts adopt a social-media-specific policy. She said that recommendation grew out of the national backlash and the personnel decisions districts made over school employees' social media posts following the killing of Charlie Kirk. The speaker could not recall the name during the meeting and was prompted by another participant; the name as stated on the recording was garbled.
That is an unusual level of candor about a policy's origin. The document Jamestown is now considering is, by the committee's own account, a response to disciplinary exposure districts faced elsewhere over what employees posted on their personal accounts.
The drafting timeline laid out on the recording: the policy subcommittee first discussed it in November, reviewed other districts' social media policies and began a draft in December, and saw a first draft in February. When the subcommittee met in April and June, the draft was also reviewed by the administrative team, by an attorney, and by the teachers' association. A member said principals received it as well and may have shared it with school improvement teams.
The gap members flagged: AI-built apps
The most substantive exchange of the discussion was about what the draft does not cover. A member noted that the policy's language is built around teacher web pages and a specific definition of social media, and said artificial intelligence tools now let someone build a functioning web app without traditional coding.
He said he could foresee teachers creating an app for their classroom, and asked whether that would fall under the policy or whether new language was needed. A member responded that it probably would be covered, because a teacher would be posting information about students and classes on it.
The chair-level response went further. A member said the definition of social media in the draft may be too specific, and that the exchange made her think a new technology would appear "tomorrow, and something else and something else." Another member said the language should be broadened, and a member said she and the superintendent would look at how to open it up.
Superintendent Kathy Sipala said the district has a draft set of AI guidelines and a draft AI policy, but asked to hold both back because the group working on them needs more time. She said the social media draft is close to ready so the district can tell teachers clearly what is expected before the school year begins, and that AI language could be added later or folded into the AI policy. She acknowledged the district will not stay ahead of every new tool, but called the app question a pertinent one.
The recording does not make clear whether the broader language will be added before the August 20 vote or handled separately.
How to weigh in
Members were told to contact the policy subcommittee chair or the superintendent directly with line-specific questions during the reading period. The public forum at the start of each business meeting remains open to residents.
Separately, the committee was told the district faces a state deadline tied to a different technology policy. Rhode Island law requires districts to review their personal electronic device policies and submit them by August 1. A member said a checklist review found only a few items needed to be added to Jamestown's existing cell phone policy, and asked the committee's permission to bring a first reading in August without convening a policy subcommittee meeting. Members agreed. The superintendent said she has asked the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) for additional time because the district will not meet the deadline, with a possible vote in September.
The committee's next business meeting is Thursday, August 20 at Town Hall. A separate workshop meeting, on the superintendency model rather than policy, is set for Monday, August 17 at 4 p.m., with the location to be listed on an agenda the committee said would be posted by Wednesday, August 12.