In what may be a national first for a school district, the Los Angeles school system has hired a full-time social-media director.
The move last month prompts an immediate question: What exactly does a
K-12 school district's social-media director do?
Answering it has been one of the first orders of business for Stephanie
Abrams since she took the job at the nation's second-largest school district
after a career as a television reporter, most recently for KCBS in Los
Angeles.
In an interview by email last week, Ms. Abrams said she picked up
technology as one of her beats during the latter portion of her TV-news career
and was one of her network's early adopters of social-media platforms.
She said her salary of just over $93,000 a year, which has drawn some
criticism locally, reflects duties and responsibilities that are far more
demanding than simply overseeing the district's Facebook and Twitter accounts.
For one thing, Ms. Abrams said, she will be leading staff education about
a new social-network-use policy implemented in February.
The policy advises employees of the Los Angeles Unified School District
to keep work-related and personal social-network accounts separate, strongly
discourages maintaining social-networking contacts with students through a
personal account, and warns employees not to hold any expectations of privacy
while using school-owned technology.
"The use of social media is a new and fluid situation at [the Los Angeles
district]."
STEPHANIE ABRAMS
Social-Media Director, LAUSD
"The use of social media is a new and fluid situation at [the Los Angeles
district], so I expect to lead the district on this issue moving forward," Ms.
Abrams said in an email. She added that enforcement of the policy would fall
under the authority of the school system's human resources department.
The district now has just over 1,000 Facebook "likes" on its new profile
page, and gets approximately 5,000 daily visitors, Ms. Abrams said, with the
expectation that the following will greatly expand during the next six months.
The district also has accounts on Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn, and is using
its YouTube channel to post weekly video updates titled "@LASchools" that will
also run periodically on KLCS, one of the city's public-broadcasting stations,
Ms. Abrams added.
The district may expand to more social-media platforms, Ms. Abrams said,
after conducting the school system's first districtwide social-media survey to
determine, among other information, how many schools have their own websites
and social-media presence, and how many students and parents in the district
are engaging in social media.
Ms. Abrams also said part of her job description includes working closely
with top administrators, especially during crisis situations, so that
information about school lockdowns, early closings, and other student-safety
issues can be relayed through its social-media accounts.
Ms. Abrams said she understands the criticism of her salary, $87,000 of
which is funded by the Boston-based Goldhirsh Foundation, which has given
funding to the LAUSD in the past and has also funded other initiatives aimed
toward "social innovation," according to Tara Roth McConaghy, the group's
executive director.
