Is Our District’s Facebook Page Being Hijacked for Politics? My Call for Immediate Action

Today, I sent a letter to Superintendent Shauna DeMarco regarding unacceptable misuse of our district’s Facebook page. The page, originally created under pressure from certain board members to enhance “communication” with the public, has now become a platform for self-serving political gain.

As outlined in my letter, former board member Judy Sullivan and the “Parental Rights in FLOW Education” page are using the district’s resources to promote campaign materials for a sitting board member and their allies. This misuse of public resources to push propaganda diverts district resources from their true purpose: fostering positive communication about our schools.

This incident makes it clear that strict protocols and guardrails are needed to prevent further misuse. It is time for the board to establish boundaries over managing social media and to address how pages are monitored and content is approved. Shame on Judy Sullivan for using school resources to support her agenda.

Here’s the email I sent to Ms. DeMarco:

Dear Ms. DeMarco,

Firstly, welcome to our district. It will come with many challenges and I wish you much success in managing them.

I would like to point your attention to a critical issue regarding the district’s Facebook page.

The current board leadership pushed very hard to hire a PR firm and begin a district Facebook page.

It appears that they did this for self serving reasons, and are now using district resources for their own gain and that of their friends.

A former board member and a Facebook Page named “Parental Rights in FLOW Education” are using the district FB page to post campaign materials about a sitting board member and her running mates.

Find screenshots linked to here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y0ymiN3shPFtp5Ny7VQ3CLK5DaHIceqx/edit

I do not think this is acceptable and I think the district should block this type of activity (not only because it is within 60 days of an election, but because it is self serving and unacceptable in general).

District staff should not be in the position of screening what should or should not be allowed as comments or mentions on the district Facebook page.

I hope this will get your immediate attention and the offending mentions will be removed immediately, and this type of commenting will be blocked going forward, otherwise the district page meant for outward communication about the positive achievements of our schools will instead become something negative that was not intended.

Kathie Schwartz

Franklin Lakes

****UPDATE on October 30, 2024 at 2pm****

Prompt attention from Ms. DeMarco:

Good morning Ms. Schwartz -

Thank you for circling back on this.

We have disabled the "Mentions" feature on our Facebook page and we also disabled both the "tag" and "mention" features on Instagram. Others can continue to "mention" us in their own posts, but these posts will not be mirrored on our district site.

I hope you have a great day.

Yours in Education,

Shauna C. DeMarco

Superintendent of Schools