The National Parent-Teacher Association awarded scholarships to three Bay Area high schools, which were made possible by TikTok, a social media company, to encourage teens and their families to talk about digital safety.
$3,000 was given to the PTA groups at the Oakland School for the Arts, Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco, and American High School in Fremont in order to launch a program called Create with Kindness. It would enable students to meet with their parents or guardians to discuss their social media experiences and the support they require.
Additionally, TikTok put together a thorough toolkit of the platform’s safety information and features. The firm’s existence in the US is in doubt; the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments on Friday on the validity of a bill that was passed into law in April 2024 and will ban the social media service by January 19 if it does not separate from its parent company based in China.
According to Yvonne Johnson, president of the National PTA, we must be proactive in how we handle this digital environment because it is here to stay. Through our collaboration with TikTok, we are educating families, bringing them together, having candid talks, listening to parents and teens, and working together to come up with a solution.
The PTA organizations can utilize the money to help organize program-related activities, such as offering childcare, meals, or translation services. The grants, which were distributed among 100 local and regional PTAs in high schools nationwide, totaled $300,000 from TikTok.
According to Ronald Taylor, TikTok’s Youth Safety Outreach and Partnerships head, the program aims to close the social media awareness gap between parents and teenagers. “Parents wanted to know what protections were available for their children and how to use them,” he said. However, Taylor claimed to have heard youngsters express a desire for greater openness regarding the criteria used to classify some content as volatile while others are not.
“The family pairing feature, which enables an adult to pair their TikTok account with their child’s account to monitor their use of the app, including their searches, is one of the safety features we would like to promote,” Taylor added. In order to discourage young people from accessing improper information, Taylor highlighted TikTok’s initiatives to encourage safe usage of their site, such as default safety measures that would point users searching for potentially hazardous content to connections to help centers.
Taylor responded that TikTok was created to truly facilitate that conversation between youth and the adults in their lives, and the program is focused on modeling those conversations and providing support, when asked if there was a concern of censorship regarding issues of race, gender, and sexuality on the platform due to the parental oversight functions.
Building safe platforms requires collaboration with the National PTA and listening to parents’ and teens’ experiences, Taylor stated. That, in my opinion, is the most important lesson to be learned from the work we’re doing; it truly centers youngsters as subject-matter experts.
According to Johnson, the initiative aims to provide families with the tools they need to develop constructive online interactions and have important discussions about digital safety. According to her, parents could use the rules given at these sessions to ensure that their kids aren’t exposed to harmful content or being bullied online. Additionally, Johnson stated that this advice is applicable to other social media platforms, even if TikTok is the main emphasis of these events.
“We think it’s crucial for everyone in the household to know how to safely navigate that platform if a family decides to let their teens use an app or platform like TikTok,” Johnson said.
The Oakland School for the Arts’ PTA president, Nick Cawthon, stated that the school wants to see a balanced view of social media, particularly in light of the detrimental effects it can have on adolescent girls. He expressed his hope that the broadcast would also highlight the positive uses of social media and highlight the possible drawbacks of using them.
According to American High School PTA President Mugdha Ghole, the group intends to host a Create with Kindness luncheon sometime in February or March. In order to attract pupils and their families, she said, they intend to invite psychiatrists to their event and serve refreshments.
Relevant ArticlesAI is being used by a Bay Area inventor to address the falling math proficiency of California students.14 new California legislation to be aware of in 2025Education | Parents in the Bay Area interact with Meta on Instagram over teen safetyEducation | Share the Spirit: White Pony Express fights food hunger in East Bay Education | As the repercussions from the school district’s $50 million energy deal continues, complaints are up and savings are down.We believe that families should collaborate on this and seek expert assistance, so that’s what we’re attempting to do,” Ghole stated. Since we work with high school pupils, this problem is getting worse in every family.
Related Articles
-
Education |
Bay Area innovator uses AI to tackle California students declining math skills
-
Education |
14 new California laws to watch for in 2025
-
Education |
Bay Area parents engage with Meta on Instagram safety for teens
-
Education |
Share the Spirit: White Pony Express combats East Bay food insecurity
-
Education |
Complaints up, savings down as fallout from school district’s $50 million energy contract continues
Abraham Lincoln High School PTA President Valerie Vitullo said she uses TikTok to share movies with her kids. She added that she was excited for the program because it would allow her to observe how other parents engage with their kids and social media, even if her kids have never had to deal with anything more than an inappropriate direct message that could be simply ignored and blocked.
According to Vitullo, we can better handle these programs when parents understand how they operate.
Although TikTok creators and consumers are worried about the potential ban, all three PTA presidents stated that they hoped to have their Create with Kindness events by March. President Joe Biden signed the bill, but President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that he opposes it.
Vitullo expressed her worry that a TikTok ban would violate people’s right to free speech.
Information must be available to us. According to Vitullo, we’re seeing things on Instagram and TikTok that we don’t see in the mainstream media. With TikTok banned, we will be much more isolated from one another and unable to actively exchange ideas and inform one another on current events in our political, social, health, and mental well-being.
However, Vitullo stated that the Create with Kindness event is still being planned by her PTA branch.
I’m hoping it works out. She expressed her hope that the parents and pupils will benefit much from this. Having this kind of relationship with your children is crucial.
