ROARING SPRING — Spring Cove School District officials have been struggling for months to refine language in several policies dealing with the increased use of social media by both students and staff.

During Monday’s finance and legal committee meeting, the discussion centered on the district’s cyberbullying policy and whether the policy’s language should be tightened — replacing the word “may” with “shall.”

One section of the policy states “The district may develop, implement and evaluate bullying prevention and intervention programs and activities.”

Changing the word “may” to “shall” could increase the district’s accountability on the issue, said board member Alyssa McGregor, who said the word “bullying” is somewhat overused, but she believes the district does have a problem with that behavior.

“I would like to make sure that we’ve exhausted all of our responsibilities to be proactive” regarding bullying, she said.

But, changing the wording from “may” to “shall” means that the district must create its own bullying-prevention program, Superintendent Betsy Baker said, pointing out that the board recently approved an external program known as Wayfinder to be used by guidance counselors.

Because a bully-prevention program requires a research-based program that the district staff isn’t qualified to develop on their own, Wayfinder was recommended by guidance counselors who conducted an evaluation of the district’s needs.

“That’s why we’re saying ‘may’ because it’s broader to cover,” Baker said.

Board member Troy Wright suggested that the board use the word “shall,” remove the words “develop” and “implement,” but leave “evaluate” to allow for external programs in the future.

Baker suggested writing, “the district shall implement bullying prevention and intervention programs and activities,” as implementation is more important than evaluating a program.

She believes that the board can make this broad statement because it is a guaranteed procedure that will continuously happen in the future.

Moving on from that section, the board evaluated student consequences listed in the policy, consistent with the code of student conduct, such as counseling within the school, parental conference, loss of school privileges, and transfer to another school building, classroom or school bus.

Additional consequences include: exclusion from school-sponsored activities; detention; suspension; expulsion; counseling/therapy outside of school; and referral to law enforcement officials.

McGregor suggested adding disciplinary levels to create consistency when punishing students, so instructors are on the same page and students aren’t struggling to adapt to different classroom rules.

Baker said those levels are already in the student handbook and aren’t specific to the cyberbullying policy.

While McGregor sought to have the levels reiterated in both the handbook and the policies, Wright opposed adding more details and sticking with the original language.

The district’s learning team, Wright said, suggested no changes to the current policy. A majority of teachers have witnessed no signs of bullying in the last year, while many others have witnessed only one or two instances, he said.

Wright asked if calling someone a name can be considered bullying, noting that bullying is often discussed in the Facebook group “Issues in the Cove Area School District.”

Some people in that group have said their child’s been bullied for years, he said, yet there have been no reports.

“There was never a report made. But they sure as heck went on the ‘Issues in the Cove’ to report that, but never reported it to the school,” Wright said.

McGregor said she met with parents before becoming a board member and noted that when families ask staff for direct feedback, it’s “circle the wagon time.”

“I want to know exactly what documentation you have to show me you’ve done an investigation,” she said.

She said that all schools struggle with bullying, but the more precise the board makes their policy, the better.

Later on, she suggested adding bullying in concert to the policy, where students working together can be punished for targeting an individual.

After a 30-minute discussion, the committee decided to continue cyberbullying discussions, along with three emergency preparedness and response policies, at their next committee meeting at 7 p.m. July 20.

Social media policy in flux

During its April 13 regular meeting, the school board rejected a revised social media policy, sending it back to the legal and finance committee and Beard Legal Group for tighter language.

That revised policy came after the finance and legal committee worked to revise wording that targets dehumanizing speech in the original policy handed down from the Pennsylvania School Board Association.

“We discussed this for hours,” Wright said as a finance and legal committee member.

“We talked to attorneys, we spent money on attorneys, we did it,” he said before voting to adopt the social media policy.

The policy change fell 5 to 4, with board members Kevin Smith, Misti Fisher, McGregor, Andrea Moses and Erika Smith rejecting the policy, while Samantha Snowberger, Wright, Gretchen Bettwy and Amy Acker-Knisely voting for its adoption.

At issue is the difference between dehumanizing speech and true threats, Baker said.

Revisions to the district’s social media policy apparently stem from an issue that was brought to the school board’s attention in September 2025, after an employee posted what some felt were unkind comments on their private social media account.

Discussions on how to change the social media policy to protect free speech and the district’s reputation has been ongoing for months.

Mirror Staff Writer Colette Costlow is at 814-946-7414.