Social Media Guidelines

OITA AJET

PA Note: Primarily directed towards ALTs, due to their close contact and interaction with students in a teacher capacity, but some parts are applicable to CIRs or other public servant positions. Please read carefully to be sure that your online behavior is just as professional and appropriate as your behavior at work, if not more so.
[written February 2015, ALT PA Diana S., CIR PA Miriam S., JPA S. Hirayama]

CLAIR: on Social Media Usage

"Information and opinions posted on the internet are open to public scrutiny. Anyone contributing content to any sort of blog or online forum should consider the potential effect on those around them and take a responsible approach to blogging. In this regard, CLAIR strongly advises that JET participants do not post any information online that violates the law, breaches other people's right to privacy, is defamatory or in any other way likely to make other people uncomfortable.
If you want to put pictures of your workplace or your colleagues on your personal blog, ask for their permission beforehand. Privacy is increasingly a very sensitive and serious issue in schools, all of which strictly prohibit putting pictures of their students on the web. Also, using work time to compose private blogs, or even take pictures or video you might later post on your blog, can be a source of public complaints and should be avoided."

Taken from a document received from CLAIR by the Oita Prefectural Office December 2014.

Interacting on Social Media

JET participants should keep in mind that as representatives of their country and of the JET program, and as workers employed by local branches of the Japanese government (not by the "JET Programme"), they should conduct themselves carefully and professionally as public servants. CIRs placed in local government offices should also be aware of their conduct both online and offline, but in addition to being aware of the sensitive issue that pictures of their students, teachers, and school should not be uploaded online without permission, ALTs in their capacity as Assistant Language Teachers placed at local Board of Educations and schools should be particularly aware of how they interact with students and coworkers outside of school via social media or otherwise.

In short:

All JETs should be granted permission before uploading any pictures of their students, coworkers, school, or workplace.
[*Please be aware, that as minors in the care of the school, students (whether it is in their personal time, at school, or at some other event such as the Yufuin English summer camp) can not give you permission. The correct person to consult with at this time would be a parent/guardian or your school.]
ALTs in their role as Assistant Language Teachers are expected to be responsible for establishing and maintaining the proper professional distance from their students. ALTs should be friendly, but not friends with students. The official ALT job description lists us as public servants or teachers. It is highly inappropriate to be make plans to "hang out" with students in your free time. Again, this applies whether you are at school or not.
We highly discourage ALTs from communicating with students through their personal social media. They can use their own discretion when using professional social media*, as long as make sure they can maintain the appropriate professional distance of a teacher-student relationship.
On their personal and professional social media, JETs should be aware that whatever they post/share/etc. has the potential to have offline consequences if discovered by their supervisor, teachers, JTEs, COs, BOE, etc. Be aware of who you interact on social media, what you say online, and who can or can not see it.

*We define professional social media as any social media account created specifically to interact with students/coworkers in a way that maintains appropriate professional boundaries.

**A special note on instant messaging services such as sms, Line, Whatsapp, Skype, and other services of the like available on smartphones including personal messaging on sites like twitter, Tumblr, facebook, etc. ALTs should not be, under any circumstances, contacting students privately using any of these chatting services. Also, please remember that it is extremely simple to take screenshots of smartphone screens to be shared on any social media website.

Note from the PAs

We understand that this may seem unnecessarily intrusive. These are more guidelines than rules, but we strongly recommend that you read through these guidelines and keep in mind that although it may seem arbitrary to you, a breach of privacy/having their face publicly on the net where anyone could see (including those who might want to hurt them) could be a much bigger matter for your coworkers or for your students.

We hope that all JET participants can understand that these guidelines are not designed to inconvenience you, but to protect JETs, their coworkers, and students alike. We would like to remind everyone that if anything did happen, it would come down heavily on the JET Programme and all JET participants. I'm sure you trust your own use of privacy filters and such, but mistakes can happen and it only really takes one mistake.

Please be conscious and careful of how you use social media and how you interact with your students outside of school and online. From now (February 2015), if PAs are ever made aware of a case in which a JET participant has severely breached any student or coworker's right to privacy or find irrefutable proof that a JET participant is pushing the appropriate boundaries of a proper student-teacher relationship with a student outside of school, we will be forced to take it very seriously and consider what kind of steps we can take to prevent this kind of behavior.

We do not want to be put in that position, but if we feel that it is necessary, we will take steps to protect the students and teachers of Oita Prefecture. Any consequences that arise from that will be the responsibility of the JET and the JET alone.