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Parental rights advocacy group Darien Parents is accusing the Director of Elementary Education for Darien Public Schools of violating the district's social media policy.
"We believe Director of Elementary Education Julie Droller’s X/Twitter account (@drollerjulie) is in clear violation of the Darien Public School’s Social Media Policy (#4400)," writes Darien Parents. "In our view, she has run afoul of the policy no matter whether her social media account is considered a 'District-Sponsored Account' or a 'Personal Account.'"
Ms. Droller maintains an account on X where she refers to herself as “Director of Elementary Education” in “Darien, CT” and includes a link to the “www.darienps.org” website. Her X feed includes posts depicting Darien elementary students participating in school activities. This is a public account that anyone can see.
Ms. Droller further includes her X/Twitter account handle in her email signature for correspondence coming from her school email account.
This clearly leaves parents with the understanding that Ms. Droller's X/Twitter account is in fact tied to her role in Darien Public Schools, and should therefore be subject to existing Darien Board of Education (BOE) policies on social media.
The existing policy provides the following for district-sponsored social media accounts:
#3 ...The employee must set up the page for the school-based activity as a group list which will be "closed” (e.g., membership in the group is limited to students, parents and appropriate school personnel), and “monitored” (e.g., the employee has the ability to access and supervise communications on the social media site). Notwithstanding these requirements, the employee may allow for public access to a part of the page that is strictly limited to providing the name and a general description of the school based activity."
Ms. Droller's account is clearly public and available for any X/Twitter user to access; it does not appear to meet the definition for a "closed" account.
#8 ...An employee may not link a district-sponsored social media page to any personal online account or sites not sponsored by the school district. For the purposes of this Paragraph 8, linking includes tagging any individual, business or entity that is not affiliated with the school district.
Ms. Droller's page, which includes a link to Darien Public Schools in her profile, includes multiple retweets and reposts to entities that are not affiliated with the school district including, but not limited to, MSNBC, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and seemingly dozens of other X/Twitter accounts.
#9 ...An employee may not use district-sponsored social media or Board-issued electronic accounts for communications for private financial gain, political, commercial, advertisement, proselytizing or solicitation purposes.
Ms. Droller's account has multiple links and posts related to politics, including ones highlighting the 2024 Democratic National Convention, a video of U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaking about organized labor issues, anti-racist curriculum, abortion rights, pro-gun control posts/articles/videos, white supremacy, booking burning, and a post written by Ms. Droller stating "Trump is Losing It."
"Since Ms. Droller references her position and the Darien Public Schools website in her X/Twitter bio and does not specifically state these are her own personal political views in her posts, does this mean these views reflect those of Darien Public Schools or the Administration?" wonders Darien Parents.
Additionally, the parental rights advocates are wondering whether parents or legal guardians gave permission to post pictures of their children on Ms. Droller's social media.
By the way, Darien BOE policy also extends to the usage of personal social media accounts.
#2 ...An employee may not mention, discuss, reference or link to the Board of Education, the school district or its individual schools, programs or teams using personal online accounts or other sites or applications in a manner that could reasonably be construed as an official school district communication, unless the employee also states within the communication that such communication is the personal view of the employee of the school district and that the views expressed are the employee’s alone and do not represent the views of the school district or the Board of Education...
Ms. Droller's X/Twitter account does not appear to contain a disclaimer clarifying that the views expressed on her X account are her own personal views and that they do not reflect the views of the district or the BOE.
It doesn't matter if Ms. Droller's account is an official, district-sponsored account or a personal account, because either way, it appears she may have violated the BOE social media policy.
There are consequences for violating the BOE social media policy, including disciplinary action "up to and including the termination of employment consistent with state and federal law."
Darien Parents are calling on Superintendent Dr. Alan Addley to ensure there is accountability if it is determined that Ms. Droller has indeed violated BOE policy, as these examples seem to suggest.
