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Board weighs whether to keep comments on district social media; staff to add temporary-disable language
Summary
Communication staff recommended keeping comments enabled because they support community engagement and reach; the board asked staff to add policy language allowing temporary disabling of public comments for legal or safety reasons and to clarify procedures before third reading.
Unionville-Chadds Ford directors debated whether the district's social media accounts should permit public comments during a work session policy discussion.
Laura Elks, the district's director of communications, told the board that comments are a valuable channel to ‘‘meet our community where they are,'' and that the majority of interactions are celebratory or constructive. She also outlined mitigation tools the communications office uses, including keyword filters, rules to strip links, and daily monitoring by communications staff.
Board members questioned whether disabling comments would reduce reach to followers and whether an automated pre-approval moderation tool exists; staff said platforms do not offer a reliable upstream moderation gate but the district can auto-remove comments with banned keywords and can temporarily disable comments in response to abuse. The board asked staff to add a policy clause permitting temporary disabling of comments with legal counsel sign-off and public notice when comments are paused.
No final vote was taken. Communications staff will draft revised policy language and bring it back for the next public reading; administrators said they would post notice when and if comments are temporarily disabled.
