Parent Informational Social Media Event January 13th @ 5:00 PM

Dear Escalante Middle School Community,

On Monday, January 13 we are hosting a Social Media Safety evening with Detective Josh Newman of the Durango Police Department from 5:00 to 6:00 PM in our cafeteria. I’m excited that many parents have indicated to us that they are coming. Students are welcome to attend with parents, and the opportunity to process the content with your child presents a great educational benefit.

When I asked Detective Newman what he would most like me to share with parents, he asked me to pass along the following information:

1. Students Associate Snapchat Streaks with Social Status: Kids can get obsessive about maintaining their streaks—especially when they've gone on for so long. To adolescents, streaks can indicate the strength of a friendship; it can be thrilling to see that you've been interacting with someone via Snapchat every day for more than, say, 200 days...or 1400 days.

2. Don’t Share Passcodes: Students share their passcodes to social media sites with friends to maintain their “streaks” so that if they can’t log-in, their friends can for them. The rampant sharing of passcodes has led to some severe bullying and unwanted sharing of content.

3. Know what your kids are doing and regularly check the phones. The excuse of “I don’t get technology” is not an okay excuse for parents to use regarding a lack of oversite. Our kids in our community need our involvement, and we need to read up on how social media is impacting students.

4. No phones in the bedroom at night - ever.

I hope to see you there on Monday.

Sincerely,

Jeremy Voss
EMS, Principal

Published December 13, 2019 Print