The parents of called on Indiana lawmakers to limit minors’ access to social media after their daughter’s death was linked to a 39-year-old man she spoke to online.

The original version of SB 199 would have banned social media operators from allowing Hoosier children to make accounts on their platforms and limited access for older teenagers. But this language was stripped in the Senate.

Now, House lawmakers are considering adding a version of the restriction back with an amendment.

Speaking at the House Education Committee Wednesday in support of the amendment, Beau Buzbee said 17-year-old Hailey had been lured away from their home by an online predator last month. Law enforcement announced Feb. 1 that she is believed to be deceased and that an Ohio man was arrested in connection with her disappearance.

Buzbee said their experience showed glaring gaps in Indiana law that needed to be addressed.

“We are losing the fight to protect our children. The internet and social media are the devils’ and predators’ playgrounds, and it’s on this front that we must fight,” Buzbee told lawmakers. “Please do not let this opportunity slip away.”

Supporters of have also called for schools to provide mandatory updated predator education and for updates to the state’s missing person alert system. they would add an expansion to the alert system as an amendment to HB 1303, a bill that increases the penalties for child exploitation, and that they would discuss adding more education to the existing health standards.

Indiana— but ultimately — a social media ban for minors under 14 and restrictions for those under 17 this year.

The most recent iteration of the ban is the amendment to SB 199, which requires social media providers to estimate the age of an account user and seek permission from the parents of users under 16. For minor accounts, the amendment forbids social media providers from using an algorithmic feed or selling data for advertising purposes, restricts who can contact the user, and gives parents monitoring tools.

Critics have raised First Amendment concerns as well as the possibility that the state will be drawn into an extended legal challenge over the law.

But supporters of a restriction on social media, including Secretary of Education Katie Jenner, say the state must act to address the risks of social media to children and teens the way it does for other dangerous activities, like tobacco use. Social media use is linked to depression, irregular sleep, and a lack of physical activity and social emotional support, said State Health Commissioner Lindsay Weaver. And these issues spill over to classrooms and affect learning, school leaders said.

House lawmakers heard hours of testimony overwhelmingly in support of the language on Monday, but did not take action to add it to the bill.

Supporters of the amendment included South Bend student Rima Bahradine-Bell, who said social media use promises community and affirmation but actually leads to comparison and dependency.

“I’m coming to you as a teenager and a high schooler, and I’m telling you that I would have liked to not have any social media at that age,” she said. “My friends are telling me to tell you that we did not want this.”

Amy Klink, a school counselor at Guerin Catholic High School, said she frequently speaks to students experiencing mental health crises as a result of social media and to their parents, who struggle to restrict social media access.

“Even when parents are aware of a social media account, they can’t be aware of every account with a new name. Parental verification could help with this,” Klink said. “It’s not the magic pill, but it will help.”

SB 199 will return to the House Education Committee on Wednesday for lawmakers to amend and vote.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

From gun-toting math teachers to federal rules that decide which bathroom a kid can use, the student safety and civil rights issues that are central to the School (in)Security newsletter could be in for some major changes. 

Here are 11:

• The return of an architect of the family separation immigration policy during the first Trump administration. | 
  
• An effort to end the constitutional right of citizenship for children born in the U.S. regardless of their parents’ immigration or citizenship status. | 
  
• A rollback of civil rights and anti-discrimination protections for transgender students. | 
  
• A shakeup at the federal government’s primary cybersecurity agency, which has taken a leading role in school cyberattack prevention. | 
  
• Efforts to unwind bipartisan firearm restrictions approved in 2022 following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. | 
  
• Policies that address school violence through a renewed focus on suspensions and “hardening schools” with measures like campus-based police and metal detectors. |  
  
• Efforts to strengthen protections for students accused of sexual misconduct. | 
  
• A promise to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education — and the potential return of policies enacted during the first Trump administration that scaled back investigations into discrimination based on students’ race, sex or religion. | 
  
• A vice president who said school shootings — which have surged exponentially in the last decade — are a “fact of life” and that schools are “soft targets” if you are a “psycho and you want to make headlines.” | 
  
• Efforts to reform anti-discrimination rules to remove “disparate impact” liability, including for racial disparities in school discipline. | 
  
• Efforts to eliminate federal funds for schools that recognize students’ transgender identities and grant equal access to bathrooms and locker rooms. | 

In the news

To school shooting survivor David Hogg, Democrats’ failure to motivate voters rests on the shoulders of one constituency above all: Boomers. I recently profiled , a well-financed political action committee designed to elevate Gen Z and millennial progressives. Here’s how they fared on Nov. 5. | 

Notorious swatter confesses: An 18-year-old from California has pleaded guilty to making 375 swatting calls throughout the U.S., including false police reports of school shootings and bombings. | 

Federal authorities indicted two suspected cybercriminals accused of breaking into a cloud computing platform and exposing the data of major corporations and the Los Angeles school district. | 

A federal judge has temporarily halted a new Louisiana law that would require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms. | 

A drop in the bucket: The Federal Communications Commission said demand for a $200 million school cybersecurity pilot program far exceeded its capacity, with 2,734 applications requesting a total of $3.7 billion. | 

The Providence, Rhode Island, school district acknowledged in a letter to families that a recent cyberattack compromised sensitive student information — but only after I published  into the extent of the breach. | 

‘A culture of bullying:’ Federal authorities have opened a civil rights investigation into a New Jersey school district where school resource officers are accused of failing to protect an 11-year-old student from harassment before she died by suicide last year. | 

The 28-year-old athletics director of a New York school district has been arrested in an extortion case, accused of demanding that a 17-year-old student send him sexual photos over Snapchat under a threat of exposing personal information about the minor. 

ICYMI @The74

Emotional Support

George, the four-legged companion of education consultant David Irwin, found the perfect lobster costume for Halloween a decade ago and hasn’t looked back.

On Dec. 3,  a Loudon County public school student attempted to take his life after school staff failed to take reports of sexual harassment seriously, a lawsuit alleges.

The male student, identified as “John Doe,” was unsuccessful in his suicide attempt and his parents have filed a lawsuit against the Loudon County Board of Education. Their son would not have attempted suicide had staff members at Fort Loudon Middle School followed the county board of education’s sexual harassment policy.

The day before trying to shoot himself with his father’s handgun, the then-8th grade student told his parents that he had been continuously sexually harassed since the school year began. His parents immediately informed school staff, who scheduled a meeting the next day.

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But despite discussing preventative measures, such as stationing a teacher near the student for his safety, the boy reported another assault the same day as the meeting. School staff corroborated the incident through video footage but failed to take the matter seriously, according to the lawsuit.

After meeting with both the victim and the harassers, who admitted to the behavior as “just joking around,” the principal minimized the impact of the behavior. The harassing students “do not have good home lives,” the principal, who is unnamed in the suit,  told Doe.

Later that day, the victim wrote a note to his family, intending to take his own life.

“I love all of you all. I will be by the gas tank,” he wrote.

The Loudon County Board of Education has not responded to requests for comment.

The procedures listed under the Loudon County Title IX and Sexual Harassment policy were not followed at all, said the plaintiff’s lawyer, Justin S. Gilbert from Gilbert Law, PLLC.

The Loudon County Board of Education’s policy for handling sexual harassment  includes disseminating information about what constitutes harassment to school staff, students and parents. Under the policy, anyone with knowledge of sexual harassment needed to report immediately to the appropriate staff member, listed as Matthew Tinker.

Tinker never received a report, according to the lawsuit. Parents were also not informed of the sexual harassment policy, which details how to file a formal complaint.

The school’s sexual harassment policy also allows for an investigation and procedure to allow all involved parties due process. None of this occurred after the initial report of sexual harassment, according to the lawsuit.

Gilbert also believes the male student’s distress was not taken seriously because of discrimination.

“Being male, the assaults were treated too casually. (Doe) felt helpless, thus attempting to take his own life,” he said.

The student’s parents are seeking damages up to the statutory maximum available, or $300,000, under Tennessee law against Loudon County Board of Education. They are also seeking $50,000 for emotional distress.

Lawyers for the student’s parents are not aware the student alleged to have harassed Doe have been reported to the police. The plaintiff has since returned to Fort Loudon Middle School for ninth grade.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on and .

����Ӱ��: What was the atmosphere like in the community during the peaks of anti-Asian hate and COVID-19?

Alice Hom: During the pandemic, our school had 30 percent of our students in person, so about 70 percent were remote, full time, the whole year. And a lot of that, I believe, did have to do with the fear of COVID-19 … but also with the anti-Asian sentiment mid year, parents did express fear of traveling on subways and buses … and were concerned about the safety of their kids, both health wise and physically.

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����Ӱ��: How did you combat the negativity during the heightened times of hate?

Alice Hom: Around May, when we had our celebration of Asian Pacific month … our district, district 2 had a whole initiative where all the kids wore buttons that expressed love, peace, and prosperity. The kids also wrote on ribbons about what their hopes and dreams are. We displayed that around the school to create a positive environment for families. And during the summer, during the summer program, a few more of the remote families did come back partly to get the kids reacclimated with their peers, and to psychologically get ready for next school year.

����Ӱ��: Could go into specifics of what you are anticipating for this upcoming school year? Are there any anxious parents? Or does it just seem like everyone’s like returning back and excited?

Alice Hom: I think there’s still, especially with the Delta variant, there is that hesitancy … one parent was expressing that, there should be still a remote option for families. And that they’re very nervous about the illness, especially since the elementary school kids are not being vaccinated yet. And they were asking about masks and, and teachers being vaccinated. We’ve tried to address their concerns, and I spoke to that parent and said many of the teachers in my school that I know of are vaccinated, and we are getting ready for full in person. And we are going to continue masking. Everyone is required to have the mask, and we will do the social distance. We’re trying to figure out how to safely have lunch periods, when the distance should be larger and kids are unmasked. But that is our goal to have kids back in the fall.

����Ӱ��: Are there any concerns in terms of anti-Asian hate as schools return in the fall?

Alice Hom: We are going to address it, I mean, district 2 is focusing on, being culturally responsive, providing education and talking about racism and how to address those kinds of discrimination. And things like that. So, that is something that is being addressed both for Asians as well as the Black and Hispanic population … We are going to use videos and books for the kids to bring their own ideas about how they’re feeling. That’s really what we’re concentrating on at the beginning of the year, to have them talk about what their fears are, what their concerns are, and just to talk about what are the best ways to keep themselves and your family safe and healthy.

����Ӱ��: Do people still feel safe to be a little more hesitant? Do you think that sense of community was lost?

Alice Hom: I think there are a lot more cautious families in the neighborhood, there has been crime (against) the community, so we’ve had a lot more awareness. And many of the schools in our district have contacted our local precinct in order to have them Zoom and talk to the parents about safety tips. A lot of our staff members and family members got those whistles, and we distributed them out to people who wanted them. I think there is much more consciousness and vigilance that many of our families in the area have shown.

����Ӱ��: Is there anything else you’d like to share?

Alice Hom: The Asian community is a strong community and has contributed so much to America, and especially in education. So there needs to be more collaborative and positive media and social media to address their contributions, but also to address their concerns in a way that is not derogatory or not looked down upon.