Student Grooming Prevention: Digital Communication Risks and Safeguards for Schools

Background checks and pre-employment screening are important safeguards, but they can't predict how an employee will behave once they're working with students. As digital communication becomes part of everyday school life, interactions between students and trusted adults can extend beyond classrooms, school hours, and district-approved platforms.

Technology is also playing a significant role in educator misconduct cases. A 2025 study of Kentucky educator misconduct cases found that more than 70% of the cases examined involved technology or electronic communication, including texting and social media, to facilitate inappropriate relationships or sexual misconduct with students.

The issue is receiving increased attention from policymakers. The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights launched a national initiative focused on protecting students from adult sexual misconduct. Meanwhile, the proposed Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act includes safeguards for minors on online platforms, such as restrictions on disappearing messages and additional parental controls.

School Security Leadership spoke with Lamija Alisic, a risk control service consultant at Church Mutual, about strengthening adult-to-student digital communication policies, identifying potential warning signs, addressing boundary violations, and helping students and families report concerns. She also discusses common gaps in school safeguards and what administrators should evaluate in their existing practices.

The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What safeguards should schools have in place after hiring?

Background checks only identify known offenses, not undiscovered unsafe behaviors. They don't necessarily tell you how someone is going to behave six months later in a group chat at 10 p.m. Grooming can start in a classroom and then really accelerate through technology. So, in my viewpoint from the field, what schools do after hiring is just as important as the initial screening.

Periodic background checks and reviews of public social media can help catch red flags that one check at the time of hiring might miss. One school I’ve worked with even created a private, district-owned account specifically for reviewing public postings for this purpose.

But probably the most important step is making sure all adult-to-student communication happens through school-approved channels that parents and administrators can see. No personal texting. No DMs. No friending students. That transparency takes away the secrecy that groomers depend on.

Every employee, coach and volunteer should also sign clear expectations around digital communication, with private online exchanges treated much like an in-person one-on-one. Schools should monitor school-issued devices and platforms, regularly observe classrooms, and train staff to recognize boundary drift before it becomes something more serious. That might look like singling out a student, messages becoming more personal, or contact happening at odd hours.

And just as important, people need to feel safe reporting those smaller concerns. It should be expected, not something employees are afraid to do. Students and parents should also know exactly who they can go to with a concern.

We know roughly 40% of kids say someone has tried to manipulate them, and perhaps more concerning, online enticement rose 300% from 2021 to 2023. With numbers like that, a school’s own controls and culture around boundaries matter more than ever.

What should school policies say about adult-to-student digital communication?

A strong policy should be clear about who it covers, which platforms are approved, and when they can be used — including evenings, weekends and summer. You really don’t want a lot of gray area here. It should be specific and firm: no private or unmonitored contact, no texting, calling or messaging students through personal phones or social media, and no friending or following students. 

Communication should stay focused on things like schedules, assignments, practices and events.

If a student reaches out through a personal account, staff shouldn’t engage there. They should move the conversation to an approved platform and let an administrator know. The policy should also spell out the consequences, including potential dismissal or legal action, and it should be reviewed regularly as technology changes.

Schools I’ve worked with have developed these policies with their legal team and required every staff member and volunteer to sign them. At the same time, staff who legitimately need to communicate directly with students don’t necessarily need a ban on communication. They need structure around it. Teams or class apps can give coaches and advisors one place to reach students, while still giving administrators the ability to review the message history. Many of these platforms can also restrict or eliminate private messaging. Parents should be able to see those messages, too. And if something really does need to become a one-on-one conversation, a second adult should be included whenever possible. Exceptions, like overnight trips, should be approved ahead of time. 

I actually used a system like this when I was coaching. Each player’s account was tied to a parent, every post went to the whole team, and questions came through public comments. If something really needed a one-on-one conversation, I called the parent. That worked because it didn’t prevent us from communicating with students. It just made sure we were doing it in a way that was transparent and safe.

What digital communication practices should raise red flags?

Disappearing or deleted messages, late-night contact, private one-on-one conversations, and moving a conversation from a school-approved platform to a personal account should all raise concerns. The move to a personal account is especially important because it takes the relationship outside the school’s safeguards. And when messages disappear, there’s no longer a record of what was said.

These things can be difficult to spot because almost every platform students use now, whether it’s TikTok or gaming consoles, has some form of private messaging, and anyone can create a profile. The UK’s NSPCC found Snapchat was used in nearly half of recorded online grooming cases where the platform was known.

Groomers can also create fake profiles and use a child’s interests to build trust, so at first the contact might look completely innocent. Schools should be looking at the pattern. Is a staff member repeatedly communicating with a student through private or temporary channels? Is it happening late at night? Are they moving the conversation somewhere the school can’t see it? Those are the kinds of things that should get someone’s attention.

Schools don't need to wait for legislation to act. They can name these behaviors in their codes of conduct today, make them reportable, and make sure parents know what to watch for, too. The more visibility parents have into those conversations at home, especially when something moves outside the school's expectations, the better chance we have of catching a concern early.

What are the early warning signs of inappropriate adult-to-student communication?

Grooming is a pattern of behavior, not a platform, so training should teach staff how the process develops. Early signs include an adult building a connection around a student's interests, such as sending tailored posts or videos, knowing more about a student's online life than their role requires or suddenly communicating with a student more often. In person, staff should watch for favoritism, inside jokes, requests for one-on-one time, physical gestures, or an adult who prefers students' company over colleagues'. I often ask leaders to remember one simple rule of thumb: Healthy relationships have clear boundaries and never rely on pressure or secrecy.

Students may show signs before anyone sees the messages, including new anxiety, withdrawal, hiding their phone, sudden personality changes, or slipping grades or athletic performance. One opportunity I see often is making training more interactive and keeping it current as tactics change. Schools should regularly make sure staff know what grooming can look like and, just as importantly, how to report it. We all acknowledge technology is changing quickly. By the time we’ve established standards around the tools we’re using today, there will probably be something new that’s taken off and created another avenue for inappropriate behavior. Training has to keep up with that.

How should schools respond to violations of digital communication policies?

Even if the messages themselves aren't explicitly inappropriate, schools should take violations of their communication policies seriously and respond promptly while following applicable legal requirements. The first priority is the student's safety, so schools should assess whether temporary restrictions on contact are necessary during the review. Then, document everything. Save the messages, note the dates and platforms, and preserve any relevant school email, learning platform logs, texts, or posts.

From there, apply the consequences in the employee’s conduct guidelines consistently. If the rules bend because someone is a popular teacher or a winning coach, they stop functioning as rules.

Schools should also look at whether there’s a broader pattern, support the student, involve the parents, and follow reporting procedures if any action suggests grooming.

Finally, use the incident to improve the process. Why did the employee bypass the approved system? Do they need a refresher? Or is the platform difficult enough that staff are finding workarounds? Addressing those smaller boundary issues early can help keep them from becoming something much more serious.

What safeguards should schools have for coaches, volunteers, and contractors?

Expectations shouldn't change with the job title. To a child, an adult is simply an adult in a position of authority, whether a teacher, volunteer, or contractor. Coaches, volunteers, and contractors often work after hours or off-site, when oversight is weaker. Because of that, they should follow the same communication and conduct standards as full-time staff. They should also go through the same screening, including background checks, reference checks, and internet searches, and complete training before their first practice or event, with annual refreshers.

From day one, they should use the school's approved communication platform to communicate with students and parents, rather than personal phones or accounts. Each should have a designated staff contact who monitors communication, and vendor contracts should require compliance with school policies. 

There’s also a financial protection piece that schools should consider. In my role in risk control, I work with a lot of faith-based and private schools through Church Mutual, and we offer sexual misconduct and abusive behavior coverage that can extend to volunteers acting within the scope of their duties. But insurance works best alongside strong screening, training, supervision and reporting. Prevention should always come first.

Even when a school follows its policies and procedures, accusations can still be made against the institution or its staff. That’s where having the right insurance in place can provide an important layer of financial protection when the unexpected happens.

What should students and families know about appropriate digital communication?

Families can't spot a violation if they don't know the rules. Schools should clearly explain how employees may communicate with students and parents, so that anything outside the approved platform, such as a direct personal message, stands out.

Students need to understand that risk can come from trusted adults as well as strangers, including fake profiles posing as peers. Digital citizenship lessons should make clear that any adult who asks a student to keep a conversation private is crossing a boundary, no matter how friendly they seem. Lessons should also cover practical habits: connect only with people you know in person, don't friend or follow school staff, and use privacy settings on every app. A simple test helps: Don't post or send anything you wouldn't want your parents or a future boss to see.

Parents can reinforce that message through open, non-judgmental conversations rather than fear-based warnings, along with regular device checks and built-in safeguards such as Instagram's Teen Account supervision and Snapchat's Family Center. Schools should make reporting easy with specific contacts and multiple options. Most importantly, students need to know they won't be punished or judged for speaking up, even if they responded to a message.

What common gaps exist in schools' digital communication policies?

The most common gap is a policy written for another era. Many still focus on email and texting while students spend their time on social media, apps, and gaming platforms. Schools also often assume grooming happens mainly in person, leaving digital interactions with less oversight, and underestimate how bad actors use technology to build trust. It's common to hear, "We know them. They would never."

Other gaps include policies that cover only the school day or classroom teachers, leaving out evenings, weekends, coaches, and volunteers, and policies that are shared only with staff rather than with families and students. Screening often ends with a background check, and training is a one-time exercise that can't keep pace with evolving tactics.

School leaders can start with three questions: Which programs involve online interaction? Where are students using internet-connected devices? And do staff, coaches, and volunteers know what grooming looks like and how to report it? No school can eliminate every threat, but every single one of us can be better prepared.

This article is contributed by Lamija Alisic, a risk control service consultant for Church Mutual, an insurance and risk management company that serves religious organizations, public and private K-12 schools, colleges and universities, camps, and nonprofit organizations.

Note: The views expressed by guest contributors are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, School Security Leadership.