School posts tons of photos of students on Instagram

[Anonymous]

When we enrolled our DD at this school we signed a form saying we did NOT consent to having any photos of her or her work posted online. Under the relatively new principal, the school has a new Instagram acct where they post a lot of photos of students. I'm not sure if they are checking to make sure the students who appear in photos have a media consent form on file. I did scroll through the whole thing and I didnt see any pics of DD, nor any of her friends X, Y, and Z whose parents also didnt give consent. But I cant be sure if that's just coincidence or if the school is actually following correct procedure. They have been careless about other things.

Should I message the acct or contact the principal to make sure they are checking before posting? Or should I just monitor the acct and only take action if I come across a photo with DD in it?

[Anonymous]

It always got on my nerves when my school did this especially when they tried refusing to take them down when i complained.

[Anonymous]

The second. So far far, all evidence is they are following protocol. Of course you wait until you see a problem before you complain of that problem.

[Anonymous]

Wait, no one who didn't sign the consent appears, but you're still complaining? Really?

[Anonymous]

Only take action if you see pictures of your dd.

[Anonymous]

You see that they are doing their job, but you want to send a reminder to them to do the job they are already doing? Do people communicate with you that way at your job?

[Anonymous]

This isn’t a concern if you don’t see pictures of your kid.

[Anonymous]

OP Calm down. From what you wrote they’re following what parents signed. MYOB and just check for your DD. You don’t even need to check for your friends’ kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP Calm down. From what you wrote they’re following what parents signed. MYOB and just check for your DD. You don’t even need to check for your friends’ kids.

+1
They appear to be following protocol but you are still going to complain?
For what it’s worth, my kids and their friends love looking at these and the one parent who opts out has a child who is always very sad to not be included

[Anonymous]

I work in a school OP. Very few kids are opted out of photos, so it’s really not that hard to avoid posting those kids. But don’t be surprised when your kid comes home and says they weren’t allowed to be in a photo.

[Anonymous]

Our K-8 school is really careful about putting photos that include lots of faces- all kids with consent- on Stories, not posts. Posts are usually about specific projects or activities or teacher spotlights. They rarely show children’s faces and deliberately so.

Is this a private school? There are plenty of schools doing a good job of giving prospective families insight into student life without unnecessarily exposing kids on social media. It’s fair to communicate to the principal/head of your child’s school division/marketing director that you’re uncomfortable with this situation. You might not get a response, and they might not care. But for all you know 19 other families have complained and the marketing director has promised the Head of School to change the content they use once they hear 20 pieces of negative feedback.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we enrolled our DD at this school we signed a form saying we did NOT consent to having any photos of her or her work posted online. Under the relatively new principal, the school has a new Instagram acct where they post a lot of photos of students. I'm not sure if they are checking to make sure the students who appear in photos have a media consent form on file. I did scroll through the whole thing and I didnt see any pics of DD, nor any of her friends X, Y, and Z whose parents also didnt give consent. But I cant be sure if that's just coincidence or if the school is actually following correct procedure. They have been careless about other things.

Should I message the acct or contact the principal to make sure they are checking before posting? Or should I just monitor the acct and only take action if I come across a photo with DD in it?

I would send an email reminding the teacher, principal, administration that no photos should be taken of your child.

[Anonymous]

I find it somewhat surprising that you know which of her friends at this school that you just enrolled her at have consented to having photos posted or not.

I don't know why you are worried about it if they have not posted any photos of kids whose families have not given consent. I think if you say something at this point you risk antagonizing an administration that is actually doing a very good job on this issue and getting labeled as "that family" that is extra demanding and must be treated with kid gloves.

[Anonymous]

Lock this clown up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our K-8 school is really careful about putting photos that include lots of faces- all kids with consent- on Stories, not posts. Posts are usually about specific projects or activities or teacher spotlights. They rarely show children’s faces and deliberately so.

Is this a private school? There are plenty of schools doing a good job of giving prospective families insight into student life without unnecessarily exposing kids on social media. It’s fair to communicate to the principal/head of your child’s school division/marketing director that you’re uncomfortable with this situation. You might not get a response, and they might not care. But for all you know 19 other families have complained and the marketing director has promised the Head of School to change the content they use once they hear 20 pieces of negative feedback.

OP here-- it's a public school. It's a murky situation for us because the new principal is very unpopular with many parents (that spouse and I are friends with as well as others we only know casually) but we've never had any issues with her (yet). There's just a sense that she doesn't care about long-standing traditions or school/neighborhood culture, and that the whole new office staff is not really on-the-ball. So for that reason we would not be surprised if she or her staff posted without checking.

Looking more carefully at all the stories and posts over the past two school years, a certain ethnicity is not represented at all and another ethnicity is way over-represented, so I think they are checking. Culturally, where we live, certain demographics care more about privacy and others not so much. I won't elaborate on that. If you know, you know. YMMV.

We really didn't want to add "monitor school's IG" to our already too long to-do list, but I think we'll take that approach since it seems 90% likely they are abiding by the consent forms.

Thanks everyone for your insights.