Nearly 300 students had access to porn via Snapchat, middle school principal says

Nearly 300 students had access to pornography shared in group chats, according to the Alston Ridge Middle School principal.

Jason Davies is one of many parents who received an email from the principal at his son’s school. The email informed parents about 300 students were involved in social media groups sharing porn.

“It spreads like wildfire,” Davies said. “[It includes] stuff like that, inappropriate stuff [and] funny stuff.”

The Wake County Public School System said students shared the images through the social media app Snapchat and it involved students at Alston Ridge Middle School. Snapchat is an app meant to share pictures and videos with friends.

The district said it didn’t start at the Alston Ridge Middle School campus. However, because it involved so many of their students, they are still looking into it.

Davies said he’s concerned even though his son doesn’t have Snapchat.

“I hope it didn't happen during school hours,” Davies said.

WRAL News asked Allison Reid, the senior director of digital learning and libraries for the district, about it. She said it didn’t happen during school hours.

WRAL News asked Reid about how the district monitors students when they’re on campus.

“We have filters in place that prevent them from going to sites that we know are not appropriate for school use,” Reid said. “Even if they used their device on our internet, that is filtered.”

WRAL News also asked how the district handles off-campus activity since it involved so many students. The district is investigating and Reid said they will take action if needed.

In the meantime, the district is urging parents to talk to their kids about their phone use.

“Having conversations about how they are using it and what they are seeing and how do you feel about it, that is a great way to gauge how healthy usage of this device is,” Reid said.

Davies said he already monitors what his son is looking at on the internet. 

“If something comes up that he's not supposed to watch, he knows he's not supposed to watch it,” Davies said. “And that comes from all the due diligence that we've gone through as parents”

Cary police said they are aware of the situation, but are currently not conducting an investigation of their own because it's not a criminal matter.