Greensburg Salem School District is Prepared for its First Right-to-Know Request Featuring Social Media Content

Located about 35 miles east of Pittsburgh, the Greensburg Salem School District serves four communities in southwestern Pennsylvania. It’s a tightknit school community, with an enrollment of 2,583 students across five schools.

Kayla Tamer, Greensburg Salem’s Associate to the Superintendent & Coordinator of Community Outreach, manages all marketing and communications for the district on her own. From updating the district’s website to coordinating with community partners and writing grants, Tamer wears many “different hats.” Managing the district’s Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X accounts is one of them.

Social media content is considered a public record under Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know (RTK) Law. For the first several months of Tamer’s tenure at Greensburg Salem, the district was not archiving comments and posts on the district’s accounts. She quickly realized she needed to find a solution.

The Challenge: Limited Time, High Stakes Involved with Managing and Preserving Social Media Content

Before CivicPlus’ sales team approached Tamer in 2024, she hadn’t considered the possibility of the district receiving a public records request for social media content. And even if they did, she and her colleagues assumed they could easily access the records they needed.

According to Tamer, the district does receive Right-to-Know requests from time-to-time, so the risk of receiving one featuring social media content was real. As the leader of a one-person team, Tamer doesn’t have the time to archive the content she posts to each account daily. In fact, her limited bandwidth makes maintaining an engaging presence on social media challenging.

“Sometimes I’ll do a ‘thumbs up’ and sometimes I’ll comment, but I just don’t have a lot of time to live in that world,” says Tamer.

After receiving several emails from CivicPlus, Tamer decided to take a meeting with the Social Media Archiving sales team.

The Solution: Real-Time Alerts and Secure Archiving – A Game-Changer for the District

Tamer’s discussions with CivicPlus not only brought to light a gap in the district’s social media recordkeeping practices but also highlighted a potential solution to her challenge of remaining responsive on social media while balancing all her other obligations. As she reflects on Greensburg Salem’s 11 months as a Social Media Archiving customer, Tamer can point to three features that have made the biggest impact on her work:

• Historic Capture: Social Media Archiving captures all social media content posted to district accounts—including content posted before they began preserving content with Social Media Archiving—to prepare them for Right-to-Know requests.
• Keyword Alerts: Whenever a visitor to one of Greensburg Salem’s pages leaves a comment containing a threat or profanity, asks a question, or praises students or teachers, Tamer receives an email in her inbox alerting her. This lets her quickly address any inappropriate behavior, elevate praise, and answer questions.
• API Archiving: Social Media Archiving goes beyond simply screenshotting social media content by capturing details key to proving the authenticity of the content, including timestamps, metadata, and digital signatures.

The Results: Hundreds of Posts Preserved with Timely Alerts

Greensburg Salem began preserving its social media content for the public record with Social Media Archiving in March 2024. Since then, they have archived 20 posts and comments, on average, every month. Tamer has also received 93 email alerts regarding postings by families on social media, and 246 alerts for instances when families praised the district and its students. Social Media Archiving has also alerted her about posts and comments with concerning material on nearly 80 occasions.

But perhaps the most valuable benefit of Social Media Archiving, according to Tamer, is its ease of use.

Conclusion: Expanding Coverage and Strengthening Compliance

In the coming months, Tamer is looking forward to connecting accounts she doesn’t manage directly, such as the cheerleading team’s Instagram account, to the district’s archive. In the meantime, she has peace of mind in knowing she’s prepared for the day when she’s asked to share social media content for a public records request.

“It was a positive experience setting it up. I didn’t experience any issues. It was a quick and painless process, which can’t always be said when setting up new software,” says Tamer.