Fairfax County Public Schools is planning to pay up to $200,000 for social media surveillance services over the next two years, recently released documents show.
The nonprofit organization Parents Defending Education obtained a copy of a contract solicitation from the northern Virginia school district, which is seeking to establish a substantial social media surveillance program to monitor perceived threats.
Companies that were awarded the contract would provide “software that will allow Fairfax County Public Schools to expand social media research program in order to detect [and] help deter any negative actions or consequences coming from social media which may be directed to racial groups or any student or teacher within FCPS,” according to the contract.
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The district said it plans to use the software to “monitor social media threats, harassment, hate speech and bullying.”
To do so, it is seeking to collect unlimited amounts of data with “no limits on searches” and that the software must “visually identify relationships and connections between persons” and “create unlimited rules” that “associate assets with curated keyboard groups to surface unknown risks.”
Bidding for the contract was set to close on Feb. 2. It is not known if the contract has been awarded.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Fairfax County Public Schools said the school district’s “Social Media monitoring program is in the developmental stage and is intended to protect students and staff from potential safety threats through early notification and response.”
“As this program develops, it will be supported by regulation and procedures,” the statement continued. “It is only a part of our comprehensive safety and security program that focuses on a safe school environment.”
In a statement, Parents Defending Education President Nicole Neily said that “the district intends to spend taxpayer funds to monitor and chill constitutionally-protected speech.”
“Unfortunately for FCPS, students and their parents have First Amendment rights too,” Neily said. “Efforts to chill speech through Orwellian programs like this have rightly been challenged — and struck down — by courts around the country.”
Parents Defending Education Vice President Asra Nomani said the organization is not aware of any other school districts attempting to collect online data.
The school district’s efforts to monitor online activity come as school district officials and school board members across the country are facing increased scrutiny amid a nationwide movement of parent activism sparked by frustration with pandemic policies and the inclusion of controversial curriculum in public education.
In September 2021, the National School Boards Association sent a letter to the Biden administration asking the Department of Justice to investigate protesting parents as domestic terrorists under the USA PATRIOT Act. Emails later showed that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona had personally solicited the letter, a charge the Department of Education denies.
Less than two weeks after the letter was sent, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo establishing a joint task force with the FBI and the DOJ to investigate threats against school board members.
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Following substantial public outrage, the NSBA withdrew its letter and apologized for sending it, but Garland stood by his memo in congressional hearings. A whistleblower revealed in November the FBI was actively tracking threats to school boards.
