The Lawyer Test

A deposition-style exchange

SB 848 requires school boards to define limits on staff-student electronic communication. Most districts arrive at similar policy language: team and activity communication must occur within approved platforms, and personal channels are not permitted. 

The harder question is not the policy itself. It is whether the policy is supervised in practice. Logging communication and supervising it are not the same thing (see The Yard Duty Test).

Below is how a deposition might go in the unfortunate event of staff misconduct.

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The policy

Attorney: Please describe your district's policy on staff-student communication.

Both Principals: All school-related communication between staff and students must occur within school-approved platforms. Personal channels (text messaging, personal email, third-party apps) are not permitted.

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What the platform allows

Attorney: What does your platform technically allow a staff member to do?

FanAngel Principal: That is a configuration decision. We can limit or disable one-on-one staff-student messaging, set moderation thresholds, and adjust group settings to match what administrators can realistically oversee. Configuration is set at the district, school and activity level.

School Communication Platform Principal: Staff can message students and parents through the platform. Communication is logged.

Attorney: So your platform allows one-on-one messaging between staff and students by default?

School Communication Platform Principal: Yes, within the platform.

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Who is actually watching

Attorney: Who reviews staff-student communication in your district?

FanAngel Principal: Every morning, assigned administrators and staff see a summary of all one-on-one staff-student messaging across their teams and activities. For example, the AD and athletic secretary see athletics, the activities director sees clubs and performing arts, and the principal sees all of it. It is a few minutes of reading for whoever is responsible for the daily check in their department. If something warrants closer inspection, they pull the full conversation from there. Concerning conversations can be flagged either by an administrator or by the FanAngel itself, and every flag creates a record another reviewer can pick up later.

School Communication Platform Principal: Senior administrators have access to communication records. They can review them as needed.

Attorney: How frequently does your AD or activities director actually review staff-student DMs?

School Communication Platform Principal: They do not have direct access. They have to ask the principal or assistant principal to pull logs. If a concern was raised, they would request help.

Attorney: So review happens after a concern is raised, not before?

School Communication Platform Principal: That is correct.

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Hierarchical visibility

Attorney: What if the head coach, or the lead advisor of a club, is the person you are concerned about?

FanAngel Principal: Visibility is hierarchical and independent above the staff member's level. The head coach or lead advisor sees all staff-student DMs on their team or in their activity, including their own and those between assistants and students. The AD sees across all sports. The activities director sees across all clubs and programs. The principal sees across the school. A staff member cannot limit what an administrator above them sees.

School Communication Platform Principal: The AD or activities director is typically included in team or group channels, but no, they cannot see DMs between assistants and students without help from IT or the principal.

Attorney: So an assistant coach or club advisor could message a student one-on-one and no athletics or activities administrator would have visibility into that conversation unless they specifically requested logs?

School Communication Platform Principal: That is correct.

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Detecting patterns over time

Attorney: Grooming does not typically appear in a single message. It develops over weeks or months. How would your district detect that pattern?

FanAngel Principal: When an administrator reviews a conversation, they see the full history between those two people, across teams, activities, and seasons. Prior flags and reviews carry forward. We are not starting from scratch each time. Underneath all of that, FanAngel continuously scans messages across time, teams, and activities, looking for patterns that warrant attention. Human review is the front line. FanAngel is the safety net.

School Communication Platform Principal: If a concern was brought to our attention, we would investigate.

Attorney: Brought to your attention by whom?

School Communication Platform Principal: A student, parent, or staff member.

Attorney: So the detection mechanism depends on a child, a parent, or a colleague recognizing and reporting concerning behavior?

School Communication Platform Principal: Yes.

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What you could show after an incident

Attorney: If an incident occurred today, what could you show me about your district's response to prior warning signs?

FanAngel Principal: The complete record. Full message history, timestamps, frequency, prior flags, and a log of every review: who looked at it, when, and what action was taken.

School Communication Platform Principal: We could work with IT to retrieve communication records.

Attorney: Can you produce documentation showing that anyone in your administration reviewed this staff member's communications before the incident?

School Communication Platform Principal: Not in the platform. If a review happened, it would be documented in the administrator's own notes or in a separate case file.

Attorney: So a plaintiff's attorney would have to subpoena emails, personal notes, and any internal records to reconstruct whether the review occurred?

School Communication Platform Principal: Yes.

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Workarounds

Attorney: What if the staff member communicated with the student outside the platform, on personal cell phone, personal email, or social media?

FanAngel Principal: We cannot supervise communication that happens outside the system. No platform can. What we can do is make the policy clear, make compliance verifiable, and monitor adoption. Administrators can see message volume per team or activity over the last 7, 30, and 90 days. A team or group that suddenly goes quiet is worth a conversation, because it may indicate the activity has drifted to an unapproved app.

School Communication Platform Principal: We rely on staff to follow policy and on others to report concerns.

Attorney: So your detection mechanism for off-platform communication is the honor system?

School Communication Platform Principal: We trust our staff to follow district policy.

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One last question

Attorney: In your professional judgment, is having communication records the same as supervising communication?

FanAngel Principal: No. Records tell you what happened. Supervision tells you what is happening.

School Communication Platform Principal: Records are what we have.

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