Supervised DM

Supervised DM: Setting a Higher Bar for Staff–Student Communication

When schools talk about supervising staff–student communication, the conversation often breaks down around one question:

What do you do about direct messages?

Under Ed Code § 32100, staff–student direct messages are not informal side channels. They are digital nonclassroom environments sponsored by the school and expected to be easily supervised.

Many platforms implicitly respond by avoiding DMs, discouraging their use, or allowing them while relying on message logs for post-hoc investigation. In real extracurricular settings, those approaches prove unreliable — because they do not keep staff–student direct messages easily supervised as a matter of routine operation.

Sports and activities involving highly technical, individualized instruction—pole vault, hurdles, quarterback development, diving, tennis, and similar disciplines—require focused, private exchange for video clips, detailed feedback, technique corrections, and timing cues.

Any solution removing or restricting DMs may seem to reduce the risk of misconduct, but it also handicaps the coach-athlete dynamic and may push necessary 1:1 communication into unapproved channels like text messages.

Allowing DMs through a platform that enables logging and post-hoc investigation is a common starting point. It gives staff the channel they need for 1:1 communication while providing admins a record to review during investigations.

‍But logging alone is reactive: it relies on students or mandated reporters identifying a problem first–meaning investigations can only begin after harm may have already occurred.

Approaches that rely on after-the-fact reconstruction do not keep staff–student communication easily supervised in routine operation.

What’s been missing is a way to allow necessary 1:1 communication without treating oversight as an after-the-fact exercise.

FanAngel has designed a new approach for Schools to have 3 layers of supervision over necessary DMs.

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Level 1: Message Moderation (Baseline Safety)

The first layer of supervision is automated content moderation.

This layer is designed to stop clearly inappropriate or harmful messages before they are delivered.

Unlike logging or retrospective review, it focuses on immediate prevention at the message level.

But not all harmful content is contained in a single message. Sometimes misconduct happens subtly over time. This is where levels 2 and 3 come in.

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Level 2: Routine Visibility into Direct Messages

Level 2 addresses the gap that remains after baseline moderation: private messages are invisible until someone knows to look for them.

This level introduces routine administrative visibility. That doesn’t mean reading every message — it means ensuring that 1:1 communication is never happening without institutional awareness.

The shift here is from retrievability to awareness. Instead of relying on the ability to reconstruct conversations after a concern is raised, administrators maintain ongoing visibility into how direct messaging is being used across programs.

This is not random reading.
It is not constant monitoring.
It is a design choice that ensures private communication remains connected to institutional oversight.

With Level 2 in place, administrators can maintain situational awareness, notice patterns that warrant follow-up, and access message history when context is needed.

Level 2 gives administrators the information they need to act on what they see. But even engaged administrators can’t manually monitor every relationship over weeks and months.

That’s where Level 3 comes in.

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Level 3: Pattern-Based Supervision

Level 3 addresses the reality that most risk in staff–student communication becomes clear only over days or weeks.

It emerges gradually — through changes in frequency, timing, tone, or dependency.

Pattern-based supervision focuses on relationships, not individual messages. Its purpose is not to judge intent or trigger discipline, but to surface situations that warrant human attention while context still exists.

This is not automated judgment.
It is not disciplinary action.
It is early visibility.

By identifying deviations from typical communication patterns, administrators can ask better questions sooner, provide guidance when appropriate, and intervene before concerns escalate into incidents.

Together, these three levels form a system of supervision that allows necessary 1:1 communication to continue — while raising the standard for oversight from reactive to defensible, and bringing direct messages into an institutionally supervised digital nonclassroom environment.

Why This Matters for Real Coaching

For coaches in highly technical disciplines, private communication is part of doing the job well.

A pole vaulter reviewing a plant angle. A quarterback breaking down footwork. A diver adjusting takeoff timing.

Eliminating these conversations may feel safer, but in practice it makes effective coaching harder and often pushes necessary communication outside approved channels.

FanAngel’s approach does not eliminate direct messages. It supervises them with intent.

By combining moderation, routine visibility, and pattern-based awareness, FanAngel supports one on one coaching while maintaining oversight that schools can explain, sustain, and defend.

Supervision as a System, Not a Reaction

Supervision is not a single feature or a log file, nor is it something that begins only after a complaint is raised.

Effective supervision is a condition the system maintains—one that reflects how communication actually happens, especially in extracurricular environments where risk and value coexist.

That is the practical meaning of Ed Code § 32100’s expectation that digital nonclassroom environments be easily supervised.

FanAngel was built for that reality.