Learn how to collaborate effectively with staff, families, students, and community partners to establish shared norms that promote responsible digital habits extending beyond the school day.
Community Norms are shared values and practices developed collaboratively by families, students, educators, and community stakeholders to address the challenges of cell phone, social media, and technology use beyond the school setting.
1. Clear: Norms should be easy to understand and short. Long paragraphs make it harder for people to find the point.
2. Actionable: Norms should establish clear and concrete expectations that families and community members can implement.
3. Flexible: Norms should be adaptable, taking into account individual students’ needs and differing family circumstances.
4. Focused on Community and Belonging: Norms should affirm the community’s values and provide supportive guidelines for families. Norms are not required and the focus should not be on compliance. Rather, the goal is for communities to coalesce around shared values that motivate families to voluntarily follow the norms.
5. Brief: Fewer norms are better. It’s best to aim for between 5 and 10 norms that reflect the values of the community and address its greatest needs.
Schools may establish a small group of stakeholders to develop voluntary Community Norms for cell phone and social media use outside of the school, including at home and community settings. This group will also serve as a bridge between the school’s initiatives and the home and community settings.
The group should ideally consist of 5-6 members, and it is strongly recommended to keep the total number under 10. This group may include a variety of stakeholders such as parents/guardians, educators, family engagement staff, school social workers, mental health counselors, and other community members (such as directors of afterschool or extracurricular programs).
This group will help develop broader community buy-in for adopting norms, so their early commitment and engagement is critical.
Leadership: Principal or school leadership appoints a chair/co-chairs to recruit members and oversee the process.
Steps:
Ensure a diverse mix of parents and guardians across grades, cultures, languages, and perspectives.
Include interested staff, such as those in counseling, social work, or technology, as appropriate for your school and district.
Consider inviting local youth-serving organizations, after-school providers, and sports leagues to join, fostering broader community involvement.
You are ready to move to Phase 2 when:
Note: A delay between Phase 1 and Phase 2 may lead to reduced engagement and participation, so it’s important to maintain momentum.
In Phase 2, the Advisory Group will explore the reasons and need for creating Community Norms and will set clear goals. The Advisory Group will review relevant research and information on the use of cell phones, social media, and other technology by young people to deepen their understanding of the issues.
Leadership: The chair of the Advisory Group will lead this effort and will collect background educational materials to share with the group.
Steps: At the first meeting, the Advisory Group should:
You are ready to move to Phase 3 when:
Informed by conversations and input from phases 1 & 2, the Advisory Group will begin engaging and educating the broader school and local community on challenges facing young people related to cell phone, social media, and other technology use.
Note: Don’t be discouraged if the first large community event doesn’t have a great turn out – it can take some time to build the habit of joining these kinds of events and word of mouth will help as time goes on.
Leadership: The Advisory Group leads the effort, with support from school administrators for publicity and community engagement.
Steps:
You are ready to move to Phase 4 when:
The next phase focuses on drafting the Community Norms and collecting feedback from the school community to ensure the norms reflect the community’s concerns.
Leadership: The Advisory Group leads, with support from school administrators.
Steps:
The Advisory Group:
You are ready to move to Phase 5 when:
The final phase focuses on finalizing and clearly communicating the Community Norms throughout the community in formats and languages appropriate for the community.
Leadership: The Advisory Group leads, with support from school administrators.
Steps: