What!?!  Beulah High School is using Snapchat?!?  What is Mr. Hoherz thinking? Is he spying on us?  I thought we couldn't use Snapchat in school. Those are some of the comments have I heard.  And that is not mentioning the looks I got from our staff when I introduce the idea to them at a staff meeting.  Fellow administrators usually laugh at first when I tell them about what we are doing.  They think I am joking.

I can't take credit for the idea.  I was having a meeting with a student leadership organization and the subject of school spirit was being discussed.  That discussion turned to the subject of notifying students of upcoming events.  We have tried various ideas to get daily announcements to students and staff.  We have made announcements over the intercom, posted the announcements on sheets of paper in high student traffic areas, posted them on the school website and app, and used QR codes.  All with minimal results.

I asked the students what would be the best way to reach them.  Their answer in unison was Snapchat!  I had the same reaction as you, "Yea, right!  No way!"  The more the group explained it to me, the more sense they made.  My question to them was how secure was it and could privacy be compromised.  They assured me it was legit, so I did my own research.  I found that you can administer a security code to limit the users that are able to make the Snaps.  We have myself and my administrative assistant.  People can join the account the way you normally add someone on Snapchat.  The secure part of the school Snapchat is that if you don't add the people back that add you, you can't see their Snaps and they can't interact with you.  They can just view your "Story".

I made my sales pitch at our regular staff meeting.  The staff agreed to try it but I could tell there was reservations.  Following the meeting the Beulah High School Snapchat account was created.

 

Next step was to get the student buy-in.  Some of them had reservations too.  They thought we were going to use it to spy on them.  I explained how it worked to the students and we were off and running.  We are up to 75% of our students viewing our announcements daily.  Parents are joining too as word gets out.  

I have not heard one negative comment and to be honest the response has been overwhelmingly positive.  Our staff has embraced Snapchat for announcements.  They are sending the office their announcements to be posted.  I also presented the idea to our school board at the last meeting and showed them what the BHS Snapchat announcement story looked like.  After the meeting most of them joined our account.

By giving the students a voice and listening to them, we found an answer to our issue.  We were able to reach our students the way they communicate with each other.  If you want further information on our school Snapchat, you can reach me through my Twitter account: @Kevinhoherz