PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — With the new school year comes new rules for how students can use cell phones and social media in class.
State law now bans TikTok from school district servers and allows teachers to designate an area for cell phones during class. In addition, schools are also required to teach older students the dangers of social media.
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"Kids spend enough time on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat outside of school. There's no need for them to have access in school," said Palm Beach County mom of four Lori Poss.
Poss is glad to see TikTok off limits at school. So is Superintendent Mike Burke of the School District of Palm Beach County.
"We weren't relying on TikTok to teach the standards, so I think it will be a good thing," Burke said. "TikTok had its share of bad influences where we saw different challenges over the years that were harmful, encouraging kids to misbehave or engage in risky behavior. So I'm not going to miss it."
But now, a new app called Saturn is raising concerns. It's designed as a way for students to upload their schedules to see who is in their classes and interact with them. But a post circulating on social media has parents worried about the app falling in the wrong hands.
"Either there's a reactive way you are going to manage it, or there's a proactive way," said Ian Marlow, the CEO of FitechGelb, a cyber security firm based in Boca Raton.
Marlow recommends you always talk to your kids about their social media use and monitor what you need.
"The first line of defense is having that ask for permission control," Marlow said. "Because when you see that request come in on the phone, the first thing you can do as new apps are created is do a quick search and decide should they have it."
Marlow also recommends keeping location information private.
The latest version of the Saturn app notes improvements to make the platform safer and more secure.
The new state laws also allows teachers to designate an area for cell phones during classtime.
"We leave that up to the individual teacher," Burke said. "So if the teacher says, hey, put them in your pocket, put them in your bookbag, that's fine, as long as they are put away some place."
"Obviously, phones are important to have in their backpacks. But there's no need for them to be used throughout the school day, unless an emergency was to occur," Poss said.
You may be wondering what happens to the famous Lunch Lady Squad from Wellington Landings Middle School who went viral with their TikTok dance videos. They tell WPTV they are moving their content over to Instagram.