I have an acquaintance who is a teacher, and she just started again after about seven years at home with the kids.
I noticed that on Facebook she has posted pictures of the kids (kindergarten, I think) in her class. Now she may have gotten photo releases from all the parents, I haven’t asked. But this has made me think.
But in general, would you like your child’s teacher to post pictures of your kid on Facebook without your permission? I had Facebook the last eight years or so that I taught, and I taught junior high so most of the kids had Facebook, too, but it never would have occurred to me to do that. And yes, I was old and know I was considered a dinosaur by the young teachers.
Nope. Our school only authorizes releases for their website and the teacher’s have web pages via links from the school’s site.
I would not want them on a personal FB unless the privacy settings were such that only those invited and approved could view the page.
No, I wouldn’t want them to and at the public elementary school my kids went to it wasn’t allowed. Hell, at my kids private middle school parents weren’t allowed to post pics of school events with other people’s kids in them.
I personally wouldn’t care, assuming that the photos are classroom setting type pictures and not a portrait of my kid. I suppose I wouldn’t want her naming them but, by in large, I don’t have any real boogeymen with people knowing that my kids exist.
That said, I’m surprised the school wouldn’t prohibit it since they’re picky that way (as are many parents).
Same here. Lots of people know my kids exist. I post pictures of them all the time on Facebook. I (generally) don’t have a problem with others doing the same, as long as they’re smart about it. But I also know that our state has laws in place on proper social media procedures for educators. And I also know that our school district has board policies governing such usage.
So what she’s doing may violate state law and/or district policy, which would greatly affect her employment prospects.
I feel the same as all of you, but my school didn’t have a specific policy about teachers. The parents signed a release, or didn’t, to allow the school to use pictures of the kids, but I have a feeling it never occurred to them that a teacher would do this. Well, that was as of five years ago when I retired.
I have many facebook friends who are teachers and I often see pictures of their class/students in my newsfeed. Most are pictures from class activities or school programs. I believe it is not unusual given the number of my friends who do this. But we are in the Philippines and the cultural setting is different.
I’m pretty sure my kids’ school has a policy against it but we have reason to be hyper sensitive about where our kids’ pictures show up. Most schools these days are pretty careful to monitor the child teacher relationship so I’d be surprised if she had permission to put the class up on her personal page. The way Facebook keeps changing our settings you have to be pretty vigilant about who sees what.
Even I’m not allowed to post pics of one of my kids so it looks like I only have one!
About 6 years ago the Chairman of the School’s board was diagnosed with motor neurone disease and had participated in an article about assisted dying. The newspaper used a picture of him posing with my daughter’s grade 5 class. Now I’m pretty sure I gave permission for her picture to be used in school publications, yearbooks, marketing etc but I thought it was pretty cheeky for them to think that extended to a Daily Mail article on euthanasia! A few months ago the chairman passed away and the picture resurfaced. My daughter, now 17 was not happy at all so I wrote to the newspaper and said that now her permission should outweigh mine inadvertently given years ago and would they take it down and they did.
While I personally wouldn’t care, I am surprised if the school doesn’t have a policy against it.
Here’s a creepy story: back when my son was a cute little boy, I posted some photos on Flickr, which was then brand new and I believe the first of the now-common photo hosting sites, and tagged them. Not all of the photos were of him - in fact the majority were travel photos.
But the photos I tagged with “boy” got a noticeably larger number of random views than the ones tagged with words like “Cairo” or “mountain” or “rice paddy.” Maybe I’m reading more into that than I should but … eeewww!
Nine hundred and ninety nine times out of a thousand I’m sure posting photos of your class isn’t going to pose any problems.
The thousandth time is someone with a REALLY good reason for not wanting their photos anywhere on the net - like the person with an abusive family member they’re trying to keep out of their lives
She’s a teenager is the best answer I can come up with. There was nothing wrong about the picture except perhaps the inclusion of 5th graders in an article about assisted dying. She just wants to live her life with an invisible online presence …Facebook name is a nickname and has only a few people on it, email addresses offer no clue etc. family picture time is a nightmare as occasionally we have to wheedle her into having a picture taken so that some time down the road she will be able to look back on her own life
I don’t have Facebook and have no desire to go there. I wouldn’t want anyone posting my daughter’s photo at a site that I don’t use, especially if I’d need an account to see the photo. If the school wants to post it, post it on their site, not a third party website.
When my daughter was little she was very photogenic, and her picture would frequently turn up on camp brochures, in the local paper, the Y catalog, etc. Some asked permission in advance, but most did not. I did not find it bothersome either way.
One day I decided to google an old classmate and I stumbled upon his Myspace page (back when Myspace was cool). He had a picture of our kindegarden class from circa 1983 on there. I thought it was kinda funny and sweet. But then again, I was looking cute in the picture (if I should say so myself). I would have been embarrassed if it had been the sixth grade class picture, when I was covered in acne and awkwardness.
I’m not a parent, but I wouldn’t have a problem with my kid’s picture being on someone else’s Facebook page unless their name was identified and thus “google-able”. Kids have their pictures taken all the time, whether it be pictures for school, soccer team, orchestra/band, and random candid shots at birthday parties. Seems like if a parent is gonna get worked up about an “unauthorized” picture appearing on a Facebook page, they also need to get worked up about all the other unknown photos floating out there. Don’t parents have enough to worry about as it is? I guess I just don’t see the big deal.
Well, let me backpeddle a little. There are mean people out there looking for goofy pictures to turn into memes. I wouldn’t mind if a teacher posted a tasteful image of my little cherub. But if it’s a photo of my little cherub looking like a fool, that would piss me off.
I have friends who adopted their son. His father was in prison when he was born, and his Mother got caught prostituting his 6-year old sister. Both of them are out of prison now, and looking for their children. My friends are understandably worried and moved to a different county to protect their child from discovery.
Now, it may seem that simply posting a photo, without giving a name would be safe. But it’s really not so. Facial recognition and photo search software have become incredibly powerful tools, and their power and ubiquity will continue to increase. People can set an automated search from one photo, and by tracking who else posts it, could draw a picture of the child’s social circle in hours. The time will come when anybody can sit down at a computer at the library, enter a scan of a childhood photo and hit “find”. They may get five or ten hits of kids who look like the age-progressed version of that child, but it certainly narrows the field worryingly. Details of the background, etc. can also give clues to a child’s whereabouts.
Obviously, “This is my Kindergarten class” along with the teacher’s name would constitute a whole-scale breach of this child’s security.
In short, I hope you’ll have a quiet word with the teacher, or send an anonymous note. This needs to be addressed.
Was she named in the caption of the photo or something? Does she look the same as when she was in 5th grade?
FWIW I have a handful of friends who are teachers and I’ve never, ever seen them post a photo of any of their students on Facebook. It’s just not a thing that’s done.