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Schools Super: District Looking into Twitter Claims

Edward Ehmann said claims made with "SmithtownLife" hashtag involving drinking and drugs aren't ignored.

 

Following a new Twitter account publishing daily digs at growing up in the Smithtown area, Smithtown Central School District Superintendent Edward Ehmann said the district is looking into the claims.

Specifically, Ehmann is concerned about tweets alleging drinking and drug use by students.

"If there’s a mention of something that has to do with school such as field trips or whatever, that’s something we need to know," he said, referring to a tweet that suggested students do drugs on field trips.

"The school is constantly looking at the behavior of the kids on campus during the day. We’ve had the dogs through West last week and they found no contraband or paraphernalia in any of the lockers or anything, so we do as many proactive things as we can," he said.

To date, Smithtown is the only community nearby to garner this kind of Twitter treatment, which was spurred by user @SmithtownLife.

In an email to Patch, the account's operator said they would like to stay anonymous for now.

"The reason why the information is shocking is also because of how the schools inform them. Sure, they share the problem, but they do not explain the details, like how I describe in my tweets," the Twitter user wrote.

"If the information given to parents was less censored, my tweets wouldn’t be considered as shocking.”

But the Twitter account, which has picked up nearly 830 followers and has published more than 300 tweets in the past few weeks, isn't only devoted to tweets about drinking and drugs. The majority of tweets are light-hearted satire on living in Smithtown. Also, judging by the users that post their own #SmithtownLife tweets, many are college students from the area.

Ehmann said it can be tricky to hold students accountable for what they post on Twitter.

“You’ve got to research everything and see what’s real and what’s not, so that’s the challenge," he said.

For the school district, it might only be a matter of time before @SmithtownLife reveals themself.

"Hmm I'm debating to either stop doing this and reveal my identity or keep it going ... u guys decide ...," they tweeted on Nov. 20.

Related Topics: Social Media and Twitter

Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds

7:42 pm on Wednesday, November 23, 2011

The Smithtown District actually does a great job educating our kids about the dangers of underage drinking and drug use.

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scsddad

11:22 pm on Tuesday, November 29, 2011

How is Mr Ehmann going to coverup these tweets

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