Poway Unified School District pushing for positive social media use

The use of a free social media application to spread negativity and hate has spurred the Poway Unified School District into starting a campaign for positive social media use.

The application, “Burnbook,” allows users to post comments and photos anonymously. It is based off of the “burn book” in the movie “Mean Girls,” in which rumors and mean comments are written about other girls at the fictional high school.

After one user posted an anonymous threat to the application on March 4 threatening to bring a gun to Del Norte High School, the district launched a campaign to focus on posting positive messages to social media.

The Burnbook application allows users to post anonymously but tracks their IP addresses. The district and the San Diego Police Department are working together to try and identify the person who made the threat against Del Norte High School.

PUSD was aware of Burnbook prior to the threat, said Jessica Wakefield, the district’s spokesperson. “Even before the threat, several high schools had notified us that they were handling complaints about mean things being posted on Burnbook,” said Wakefield. “(The district) became concerned and reached out to Burnbook’s creator, to express our discontent with the application earlier in the week (before the gun threat was made).”

Burnbook is blocked on school and district Wi-Fi, but students can still access it on their phones and other mobile devices using mobile data to circumvent the school’s block.

Prior to the gun threat, Superintendent John Collins sent out a letter PUSD middle and high school families, talking about social media and the consequences posting online can have, even if anonymous. “Dr. Collins sent out a notice to families in the district, saying that anonymous posts aren’t anonymous, and that we should be nice to each other online,” said Wakefield.

Following the threat, Wakefield said that Collins wanted to make sure that he could speak to the students about being nice to one another and to the community about a community effort to encourage positive speech. “People should step in when people are saying or posting negative things and say positive things instead.”

Collins posted a video on the district’s Facebook, talking about the threat and encouraging students to stop posting negative and hateful things online. “We need to stop the hate. Stop the cyber-bullying. Stop the tearing down of others and start building one another up,” Collins said in the video, which can be viewed at youtu.be/nhc8SqVehuk or from the district’s Facebook page or website, powayusd.com.

Wakefield said the district is already seeing a lot of effort from students in spreading positive social media use. Westview students started a twitter account where students can anonymously submit complimentary messages about other students to be posted, and its annual social media week focused on social media etiquette and reducing hate online.

“The high schools are implementing (the campaign) in different ways, and so are families,” said Wakefield. One family had contacted her, she said, and said that they had never really sat down with their child to monitor what they were doing online, and were now doing so.

Wakefield said that the district is also looking into increasing the number of free social media informational classes it offers. Currently, the district does one, but Wakefield said they’d like to expand that number.

The district plans to continue its campaign with the help of students, including those who are involved with the superintendent’s advisory council, who other students might be more inclined to listen to. “Kids listen to other kids before they listen to adults,” said Wakefield. “We’d like to keep a grassroots feel (to the positive social media campaign).”

They would like students to continue to put out positive, encouraging messages while reporting negative ones, Wakefield said. “Focus on the positive and don’t let negative messages get so much attention,” she said.