At Country Day, students and faculty alike head to social media to convey many things, both private and public. If one searches “MCDS” on Facebook, not only will McDonald’s come up, but a plethora of school related groups and pages will appear. Several clubs at Miami Country Day such as, Model UN, Best Buddies, JSU, BSU, and others have Facebook pages to share upcoming events, bake sales, or make important announcements. But sometimes when making their pages, creators may be a little unsure about what they can or can’t put on it or even how to make it. Have you ever wondered if there are rules and regulations pertaining to these pages?  

The answer is that while there are no rules and regulations governing club sites right now, that may not be true in the near future. Nolan Sutker is the new Director of Marketing and Communications and is responsible for overseeing our online presence as a school. “There is a procedure that is being created that…goes over how to use a lot of social media pages,” he assured us. “Procedures will eventually come as they are being developed and would be more along the lines of communications, knowing that the page is being created and then kind of going over how to run Facebook or an Instagram page or a Twitter page.” He spoke about having some guidelines for content and timing of posts in an effort to make the process more efficient and beneficial to everyone.

Senior Karen Rosenbloom found herself questioning what was going on.  “Usually I am able to post to the student government Facebook page automatically. That is what I enjoy most about it. [It] is the immediate communication between the MCDS upper school community. I was a bit taken back when I went to make a post and got a notification that it had to pend approval.”

Recently, the student government page on Facebook did make some changes. That page was created when Facebook was the most popular social site, Carroll Kelly, the group’s adviser, told us. But now she concedes there are other apps people use.“It’s [Facebook] been replaced by Snapchat and things like that,” so where the page is intended for “quick announcements, we noticed that a lot of kids… especially kids who were older, were using it as a joke. Some alum would put up personal jokes, things that didn’t make any sense to me or to the kids.” That is what caused a change this year. Students can submit what they would like to announce, but it will not be posted until an admin of the page approves it. Mrs. Kelly told us the decision was made that “there needs to be regulation here. You can’t just put up anything. We really want it to be a source of information for kids, not a place for opinions, not a place for personal joke. A place for announcements and things that are affecting the current school community.”

Overall, the student government Facebook page is used for messages relating to what is going on with the school. Mrs. Kelly says, “So we want the Facebook page to kind of be like the announcements, a quick way to get the word out for everyone. What is uploaded to the page should be uploaded with the correct time and manner. When statements are uploaded that don’t relate to the school or are jokes, it does not make sense for them to be on an announcement page. I definitely encourage people who have opinions to post them on The Spartacus. I think there is a place for that but I don’t think the student government is the place for that.”