Understand that you are accountable for your postings and other electronic communications that are school-related — particularly online activities conducted with a school email address, or while using school property, networks or resources, or while discussing school-related activities.

1. Maintain Separate Professional and Personal E-mail Accounts
Stepinac community members who decide to engage in professional social media activities (e.g. creating a social media account for a Stepinac sport, club or class) should only use their stepinac.org email address for these accounts, not their personal e-mail address.

2. Guidance Regarding Professional Social Media Sites
a. Professional social media sites that are school-based should be designed to address reasonable instructional, educational, or extra-curricular program matters.
b. All community members should treat professional social media space and communication like a classroom and/or a professional workplace. If a particular type of behavior is inappropriate in the classroom or a professional workplace, then that behavior is also inappropriate on the professional social media site.
c. Faculty and students using professional social media have no expectation of privacy with regard to their use of such media. Stepinac reserves the right to regularly monitor professional social media sites to protect the school community.

3. Guidance Regarding Professional Social Media Sites for Faculty and Staff
Stepinac faculty and staff members must recognize that personal social media use has the potential to result in disruptions at school and, in extreme cases, can be in violation of Stepinac’s policies or the law. Therefore, Stepinac faculty and staff members should exercise caution and common sense when using personal social media. Below are some specific guidelines and examples:
a. Stepinac faculty members should not “friend”, “follow” or otherwise interact with students who are currently enrolled in Stepinac on personal social media sites.
b. As a recommended practice, Stepinac staff members are encouraged to use appropriate privacy settings to control access to their personal social media sites. However, be aware that there are limitations to privacy settings. Private communication published on the Internet can easily become public and/or searchable via search engines.
c. Staff must avoid communicating with students or student families regarding school or Stepinac-related matters through personal social media accounts, blogs, etc.
d. Staff must avoid posting student information, pictures, work-product exemplars on personal social media sites, blogs, etc.
e. Staff should not use the Stepinac logo and should not make any suggestions or representations that their personal social media sites speak in an official capacity for Stepinac.

4. Guidance Regarding Professional Social Media Sites for Students
Stepinac students must recognize that personal social media use has the potential to result in disruptions at school and, in extreme cases, can be in violation of Stepinac’s
policies or the law. Furthermore, colleges and employers now examine social media sites for disruptive content before admitting or hiring students.
a. Stepinac students should not “friend”, “follow” or otherwise interact with faculty or coaches who are currently employed at Stepinac on personal social media sites.
b. As a recommended practice, Stepinac students are encouraged to use appropriate privacy settings to control access to their personal social media sites. However, be aware that there are limitations to privacy settings. Private communication published on the Internet can easily become public and/or searchable via search engines.
c. Students are required to use their Stepinac email account for communication between teachers, staff, coaches, and college representatives at all times.
d. Students should never use social media for communicating with teachers, staff, coaches. Therefore, direct messages on social media sites are inherently prohibited.
e. Students are prohibited from the use of Stepinac logos and should not make any suggestions or representations that their personal social media sites speak in an official capacity for Stepinac.