PETALING JAYA, May 18 — Almost 90 per cent of school principals in New South Wales, Australia say their well-being has been affected by "social media hate campaigns” from parents.

Quoting the 2021 NSW Secondary Principals’ Council (SPC) survey, The Guardian reported that principals in the state were struggling to manage online arguments and pile-ons from parents.

SPC deputy president Denise Lofts told The Guardian that parents used to be "coming in and screaming in your front office”, but now "go and scream online”.

"I’m dealing with stuff that I’ve never really had to deal with, in terms of people’s inability to relate in a sensible and controlled manner,” she said.

Meanwhile, SPC president Craig Petersen explained how a social media pile-on can easily drag an issue out unnecessarily.

"Once it goes up on Facebook and people start piggybacking on to it, suddenly, we can’t actually manage that situation any more.

"You can easily end up with a relatively minor matter that could have been easily resolved, taking not just hours, but in some cases days,” he reportedly said.

According to The Guardian, the requirements of complaint-handling in these instances also added to the time taken to resolve an issue; when an online pile-on occurs on a social media post, each parent involved needs to be contacted and dealt with individually. 

Petersen added that having dedicated staff for managing social media, as well as other administrative functions, would help free up principals to do their work.

SPC’s findings echo data from the The Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey 2020, which reported that over 62 per cent of Australian school leaders had been subject to "offensive behaviour” from parents.

Offensive behaviour here includes threats or acts of physical violence, cyberbullying, sexual harassment and slander.

The 2020 survey also found that school leaders experienced bullying four times more than the general Australian population.