Twitter was originally created to “connect people with the latest stories, opinions, ideas and news in a brief way.” This is the only reason English teacher Shannon Draper believes it should not be blocked from the school’s server.

“If there’s something that’s happening, let’s say, in a foreign country, you could read information coming out on Twitter before it was coming out in major news sources,” Draper said.

However, due to previous events such as students tweeting in her class, Draper believes blocking could be a possibility.

“I do think we are fighting a lot of battles at school related to [social media] usage,” Draper said. “And if other people think it’s a widespread problem, it might be something to explore.”

But administration doesn’t have the time to monitor social media sites, so they are only involved when they are approached or if they’re completely aware of the situation. They stick to focusing on online-bullying versus prying through social media.

“Students are entitled to their First Amendment rights,” Principal Matt Brungardt said. “We get involved in social media, but only if it’s viewed as intimidating or bullying or if a student threatens a teacher, something like that.”

Last spring when Draper caught students tweeting in her class, she decided to investigate. She had a feeling she was being tweeted about and decided to Twitter search her name to double-check. Draper found out she was right.

“I talked to them and said, ‘You can’t do that,’” Draper said. “Then I thought, ‘That’s a good way to know what’s happening in your classroom, if students are doing that whether you know it or not.’”

One student who was caught tweeting about Draper was junior William Harnar. Draper caught him last semester during her American Literature class.

“A couple days after I tweeted it, she immediately talked to me about it like right before school started, because I had that class first hour,” Harnar said.

Harnar had tweeted about not wanting to do an essay Draper had assigned and turned to Twitter to release some anger.

“I was kind of embarrassed because I don’t like talking down to teachers,” Harnar said. “But I thought it was still pretty funny.”

Draper also believes this is a good opportunity to get to know her students a little better and be able to help her students do better in her classes.

“When I see that students have maybe tweeted, ‘Ha, ha, I didn’t read that book for Mrs. Draper’s class,’ or whatever, it’s a way for me to pull that student aside and say, ‘OK, if that’s seriously true, you’re not going to pass this class because we have a comprehensive final, so let’s talk about it,’” Draper said.

Now, Draper has warned her students, and it’s seen as more of a joke.

“Periodically I’ll look and it sort of became a joke last semester,” Draper said. “I mentioned it to one of my American Lit classes, and they say, ‘Oh we’re going to tweet about you,’ so I went and read, and they said some funny things.”

Harnar believes lots of students tweet their problems with teachers and said that’s what made him want to send the tweet in the first place. But he also believes getting caught by a teacher can be prevented.

“Don’t put your teacher’s name in it [the tweet],” he said. “Keep things more to yourself. You don’t have to tell everyone all your complaints.”