Howard County Public School System is logging off X, formerly Twitter.
“HCPSS no longer uses this platform due to low engagement and related fees, but you can find us online anytime at hcpss.org,” HCPSS said in a tweet.
The school system’s last post on the account was June 25, 2024.
“Last school year (2024-2025) it was only used for emergency notifications (inclement weather closings). We found those emergency notification posts received little traction, as our families largely rely on email/text notification or go directly to our website,” HCPSS said in a statement to Baltimore Fishbowl. “X now requires users to pay for a subscription to view analytics data so we do not have exact numbers.”
The X account is the school system’s most popular social media platform, with almost 113,000 followers. HCPSS said it explored the use of social media over the last 12 years to create a “productive space for engagement with families, staff and community members.”
HCPSS did not expect interaction from students due to platform age restrictions, but welcomed their engagement when it happened.
“Our goal for all these accounts was to create a productive space for engagement with families, staff and community members, and to a lesser degree, students,” the school system said. “It has always been our strategy that if a platform lost its effectiveness, we would evaluate its use.”
HCPSS stopped using its Facebook account in 2021. The school system said the account showed low engagement, and most of the comments were not productive and “not very kind.”
“Much thought was given to the platform, including turning off the ability for commenting; however, it was felt that using social media strictly to push out information went against the purpose of engagement and was essentially duplicating efforts on email and text,” HCPSS said.
Montgomery County Board of Education announced it was shutting down its X account in December 2024. Within 2 days, the board reversed its decision due to public outcry in the comments. The account has been active ever since.
“This decision to no longer post on X is unacceptable. Please reconsider as there are still a large audience of MCPS families and constituents that primarily remain engaged with MCPS thru X,” Montgomery County Taxpayers League President Esther L. Wells said in a reply to the Montgomery County school board’s decision last year.
Howard County Public Schools’ “goodbye tweet” has over 2,800 views, eight likes and 6 retweets. The comment section is turned off.
The school system said information is still available on its website, LinkedIn and Instagram.
“HCPSS continues to improve our website as the main source of information and is always open to, and exploring new communications platforms,” the school system said. “We regularly communicate to our full community with weekly emails to families/subscribers, weekly messages to students, regular communication to staff. That messaging is supplemented with text messaging and communication from schools.”
