Why School Leaders Need to Delete Their School and School District Social Media Accounts Immediately

Why School Leaders Need to Delete Their School and School District Social Media Accounts Immediately

It’s time. School leaders need to delete all their school and school district social media accounts. They need to erase their presence there entirely. And here’s why.

Social media once had the potential to allow school leaders to connect with their constituients in an easy-to-use communication medium. That changed when social media moved to algorithms that elevated the divisive and nonsense to an “easy-to-abuse” communication medium where trolls and the disgruntled could attack with emnity and without consequence. 

Social media is a place that values hostility and division not connection, so school leaders would do well to withdraw entirely by deleting their school and district accounts.

Now I realize, the Pro-social media evangelists would say that having an organizational presence there is vital, after all, people will be talking about your school or district there, so you need to have a positive presence there.

Nope, that’s not necessary. After all, I don’t see a scramble by the famous to have a postive presence in the National Enquirer to counter their nonsense. If it’s in the National Enquirer, everyone knows its Bull malarkey, so you leave it to its own merit. School leaders need to leave social media to its own merits too.

School leaders need to recognize that social media is the Twenty-first century National Enquirer. It’s a dumpster fire. They don’t need an organizational presence in a medium that values misinformation and sensational nonsense over truth. It doesn’t connect people; it divides them and gives people a megaphone who don’t really deserve one. If I were in a school leadership position today, I would close all social media accounts for my school immediately. They’re obsolete and no longer needed.

Instead, by closing all social media accounts, it forces anyone who needs to have true two-way conversation, not an engagement of the trolls, to use clearly sanctioned two-way communication channels such as phone calls, emails, letters, or even face to face meetings. Trolls don’t want honest solutions to problems anyway; they simply want to stir the pot and see what happens. 

Go ahead school leaders, delete your social media accounts today. They no longer serve the purpose they once did. After all, as GenAI gets going, its all going to be slop not worth reading anyway.