Social Media

• Existing Board Policies (non-exhaustive list): 
  • AC
  • GBEE
  • JICJ
• DCSD Student Code of Conduct
• Established a Digital Literacy Working Group 
• Staff and community conversations throughout SY 24-25 and beyond. For Social Media, these conversations will help further develop policies and practices related to social media use, along with resources and FAQs for families.   
• January 9, 2024 Board of Education Presentation
• January 24, 2024 Board of Education Presentation

DCSD has decided to join school districts across the country in bringing litigation that will help to hold social media companies accountable for the negative consequences of social media on students; and help school districts, including DCSD, potentially obtain damages to address social media-caused mental health issues impacting students in our schools. DCSD is entering into this litigation on a contingency fee basis, meaning that DCSD would not be required to pay any legal fees and expenses unless, and until, compensation/damages are recovered as a result of the litigation.

Books, Articles, Data 

• The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
• The Use of Social Media in Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review on the Potential Risks (NIH)
• Teens, Social Media and Technology (Pew Research Center)
• Social Media and Teens (American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry)  
• Social Media and Youth Mental Health (The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory)
• Do School Cellphone Bans Work? What Early Findings Tell Us (Education Week)
• Why Most Principals Say Cellphone Bans Improve School Climate (Education Week)

Other existing DCSD resources

• The Role of Social Media
• Health advisory on social media use in adolescence
• Parent University: Online Safety with Y.E.S.S. 
• Supporting Your Teen's Mental Health in a Digital World

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Project Reboot

• The Battle for Your Time: Exposing the Costs of Social Media TED Talk
• Parent Handbook

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Best Practices

Appropriate age for use of smartphones/social media

• Healthy Cell Phone Habits
• Constant Companion: A Week in the Life of a Young Person’s Smartphone Use
• Boys and Girls Clubs of America
• US Surgeon General
• Child Mind Institute
• Pediatric Health Care Alliance
• Mayo Clinic
• DCSD Powerpoint

Options/Issues at home 

•  Expecting and dealing with Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
  • FOMO: other kids have a phone/social media/etc. and/or exhibit items or relationships that other kids want
• Flip phone vs. smartphone
  • Basic connectivity and messaging vs. full access to apps and the internet

If you choose a smartphone for your child: 

• How to lock down/monitor my student’s Android
• How to lock down/monitor my student’s iPhone
• Take your student’s phone at night 
• Regularly check your student’s phone
• Talk with other parents at school and/or your child’s friend circle about cell phone norms, pressures, etc. Small groups of parents taking action for a few kids can make a big difference!