When four students left their Pelham, N.Y., high school by ambulance in February 2023, rumors about the cause of their illness spread rapidly—well before school leaders could determine what had happened and if any additional students were affected.
A cluster of teens had reported symptoms like nausea, and the school nurse determined they should be evaluated by a local hospital.
A whirlwind of speculation, exaggeration, and increasing concern started almost immediately.
Antsy students texted their parents, suggesting that their classmates had taken fentanyl—a scenario school nurses had already ruled out. (Police reports would later reveal the students had ingested marijuana edibles.)
The district needed time to understand what was happening, but that was no match for the breakneck speed of the digital grapevine.
The Pelham district’s experience is a particularly pronounced example of trends that have reshaped the work of the nation’s district leaders and communications directors. The rapid spread of false information—a trend that has intensified in the age of social media, artificial intelligence platforms, and the pervasiveness of cellphones—makes it difficult for schools to build and maintain public trust, public relations experts say.
Confronting that spread takes time, planning, and a sophisticated understanding of when to respond and how.
“There was a lot of speculation and rumors and we were in a position of being very limited in what we could say,” district spokesperson Alex Wolff said. “Parents wondered, ‘Why am I hearing this from my student? Why am I not hearing this from the school?’”
Things turned from bad to worse that evening.
An anonymous Instagram user created a fake account posing as a local hospital, claiming the students had “overdosed on a substance most likely laced with fentanyl.” Despite obvious grammar and spelling errors—the post called the superintendent “the super attendant”—a local TV station reported the post as an official statement.
False information spreads fast, aided by social media
As it set out to tackle the misinformation, the Pelham district’s biggest concern was ensuring students were safe and clearly understanding the situation. But it was not without challenges: Even when the investigation was complete, officials couldn’t share private health or disciplinary information with the public without violating student privacy laws, Wolff said.
All of that contributes to districts’ difficulties in correcting rumors in real time.
“In the social media age, that time where you are responding to a situation leaves a vacuum that can be filled by other sources,” he said.
In a January 2024 survey of about 400 school communications officials conducted by the National School Public Relations Association, 96% of respondents said the spread of misinformation was an issue, up from 81% in 2020, and 78% said their district had faced a challenge related to the spread of false information in the last 12 months.
“It’s really this steady drumbeat we’ve been hearing,” said Barbara Hunter, the executive director of the NSPRA.
After concerns about false information repeatedly appeared in audits of districts’ communications plans, the organization devised strategies to help leaders understand the nature of information, how to build public trust, and what responses actually break through the noise.
False information may include misinformation, which is spread unintentionally by sharing non-credible news stories or misinterpreted data; and disinformation, which is deliberately spread as a tactic to sow chaos or distrust.
In the NSPRA survey, respondents identified Facebook and word-of-mouth as the most common sources of false information about their district. Forty-one percent said disinformation about their district was shared as part of a “deliberate, coordinated effort to deceive by people who knew the information to be untrue,” and 89% said they knew the identity of the person or persons who intentionally spread false information.
Public distrust harms districts’ ability to raise funds, make policy
Concerns about the spread of false information come at a high-stakes time for districts. While polling shows members of the public have more confidence in their local school districts than the education system as a whole, trust in local schools has declined in recent years, alongside a downturn in support for public institutions in general.
And public confidence is essential for districts to win support for bond issues, turnaround plans, and often contentious decisions like moving school attendance boundaries. Research also shows that a strong relationship between parents and schools correlates with lower rates of student absenteeism.
In recent years, districts have confronted false claims of school immigration raids, fake school shooting reports, allegations about the widespread teaching of critical race theory, and internet-fueled speculation about litter boxes in school restrooms. A Baltimore high school faced a communications nightmare in January 2024 when an AI-generated “deepfake” audio file purporting to be a recording of the principal making hateful comments spread quickly online.
It’s hard to build credibility in a crisis, so districts should work to establish themselves as credible sources of information on an ongoing basis, Hunter said. Such efforts could include “inoculating” parents and the public against false information by preparing them to anticipate it, to double-check sources of information that seem concerning and inflammatory, and to look for a district response before drawing conclusions.
Some districts have established regularly updated fact-checking websites as an ongoing strategy to respond to rumors and clear up misconceptions. In her previous role as communications chief of the Fairfax County, Va., district, Hunter maintained a webpage to help the public understand the steps of the complicated district budgeting process, preventing misunderstandings about spending priorities and what had been approved.
“I think human nature is that we want simplified information, and sometimes those processes are really complex,” Hunter said.
The Lakota Township district in Liberty Township, Ohio, created its own “rumor has it” webpage in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when leaders noticed that a divisive political climate had led to increased rumors about things like the purposes of the district’s social-emotional learning program and school priorities, district spokesperson Betsy Fuller said.
Fuller consults with parent organizations and district department leaders to identify frequently asked questions and rumors that need to be addressed. She cycles posts off of the website when they are no longer active parts of the public conversation.
In addition to identifying false information, Fuller links posts to relevant district policies and proposals so that readers can more fully understand what is true.
To debunk a rumor that there was a hidden, evil meaning in the district’s logo, which includes two spiraling lines that form the “o” in “Lakota,” she dug through the archives to find the original notes from the process officials used to design the mark decades ago. In fact, the symbol is meant to represent unity and togetherness, she found—pleased that she could offer as much context as possible in her response.
“If I’m going to correct misinformation, I need to actually have the correct information out there,” Fuller said. “I need to separate fact from fiction.”
Districts reevaluate communications strategies to respond to misinformation
Hunter also recommends that districts survey parents to determine weak spots in their communications strategies, and build ongoing relationships with trusted community members who can help identify disinformation and share more accurate messages.
It may also be helpful to write talking points for district leaders or employees who interact with the public regularly, like front office staff, so they aren’t caught flat-footed when parents ask questions or raise concerns, Hunter said.
There are also small steps districts can take. They can regularly share policies for deleting offensive comments on social media, ensure public statements are free from confusing jargon that could be misinterpreted, and set Google alerts so schools can monitor coverage.
For time-sensitive, crisis PR situations like the one in Pelham, public relations experts recommend district communications officials conduct table-top exercises, talking through case studies and hypothetical situations to familiarize leaders with their strategies.
Misinformation can stem from larger concerns, offering an opportunity for leaders
In Pelham, leaders focused on offering parents as much information as possible while making it clear there were some things they couldn’t say because of student privacy, Wolff said.
On the day of the incident, students were required to stay in their classes at times so that paramedics could more easily respond to their sick classmates. Every one of these “soft lockdowns” comes with an email or text alert to parents, so leaders wrote a note home that evening offering a more detailed explanation of the day’s events, Wolff said.
The next day, after the false news report sent speculation swirling, Wolff cooperated with a local newspaper reporter who wrote a story about the nature of the fake Instagram account, helping to clear things up. He also called the television station to demand a retraction and a correction, and he worked with the hospital to coordinate a response.
We decided that we wanted to make a pivot and talk about a very real concern in our school and community.
“There is wide speculation that the students consumed a product laced with fentanyl. To be clear we DO NOT suspect that fentanyl was involved in this incident,” the district wrote in a longer message to families that evening. “While we would have liked to report this earlier, our first concern was for our students’ health. It then took time to investigate the situation so as to not inadvertently spread false information.”
While fentanyl was not an issue in this case, it was important for Pelham leaders to acknowledge parents’ understandable concerns about the dangerous drug, Wolff said. So the message reminded families that the district has Narcan in every school, and that school nurses and other employees are trained to administer the overdose-reversal drug.
The district also used the situation as a teachable moment, holding townhalls for parents and partnering with community health organizations to discuss the risks of fentanyl with students.
Even if a rumor isn’t true, it may touch on a core value or lingering anxiety for parents, Wolff said, and the district wanted to address that, too.
“We had a community that was understandably on edge,” he said. “They were getting information in different ways and not knowing what was true. We decided that we wanted to make a pivot and talk about a very real concern in our school and community.”
