Though most are aware that Elkhart High School hosts numerous social media pages to disseminate important information and share posts highlighting events happening within the school, the irony is that students aren’t allowed to gain access to view them–at least not on their school-issued devices.

Elkhart High School, as a whole, has over 10 different accounts created for the students, staff, and faculty to stay informed about school-related topics. The notifications for the media accounts, if followed, will alert students when certain events are occuring, when important forms and or papers should be turned in, and even when something interesting is going on in the classrooms. That being said, shouldn’t students be able to access this information during the school day? 

Junior Emily Davis thinks so. “The entire student body should be able to go onto social media pages during school hours, because that’s when teachers and staff post information about upcoming things, and important information.” Davis continues the opinion from a student’s point of view: “Social media pages, like Instagram, have information on many school events such as athletics and where you need to go to purchase tickets, and how much they cost. It was also very helpful when homecoming was around,” she adds. “It said everything you needed to know!” 

While the administration can understand the students’ concerns, they insist that the issue is more complicated. ETI principal Mr. Greg Stover explains. “Students shouldn’t access the pages on school equipment.” It is just not possible to unblock Elkhart High School’s social media pages without opening the floodgates to all other social media sites that would not be appropriate on a school-issued device. “However,” Stover adds, “we can’t block them if they have cell service and go through their own device to see our social media pages.” 

Clearly, “technology” is a double-edged sword. As EHS embraces it on one side, it bans it on the other. The question then becomes this: Should the school use social media as its primary method of sharing information when it cannot guarantee that all students can even access social media on their own device–whether during school or not?