Malvern middle schoolers created more than 20 TikTok accounts that impersonated teachers and posted inappropriate content

Earlier this year, fake accounts impersonating more than 20 Great Valley Middle School teachers appeared on TikTok, some depicting racist, homophobic, or sexually inappropriate content.

District officials said that middle school students had created the accounts, which gained a following among other students.

The impersonation campaign created turmoil in the Malvern middle school’s community, in what the New York Times described Saturday as “the first known group TikTok attack of its kind by middle schoolers on their teachers in the United States.”

In a message to the Great Valley community Saturday night, Superintendent Daniel Goffredo said it was “disheartening” for the district to be an example of behavior “that has caused such duress” for staff.

Over the summer, administrators are working “to identify clear and actionable ways that our already established focus on digital citizenship might be strengthened in our curriculum,” Goffredo said. “We are also planning how to reestablish a culture of trust and caring district-wide, but especially in our middle school, where the behavior of our students has had a profound impact on our staff.”

At a school board meeting in March, the head of the district’s teachers’ union, Nikki Salvatico, asked the community “to consider the emotions, trauma, and suffering incurred by our teachers.” Salvatico said the fake accounts featured “pornographic, racist, and homophobic” pictures and text, and threatened “the very fabric of our learning community.”

The incident in the Chester County school district raised questions about the use of social media by students at a time when schools are grappling with how to regulate cell phones and other technological distractions in classrooms. Becky Pringle, the president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, said in an interview with The Inquirer on Tuesday that the question of banning cell phones in schools should be left to individual communities to decide, though she acknowledged the trend of educational disruptions.

“We should come together as a community and say, these are the downsides of it,” Pringle said. “It’s interrupting education, it’s increasing bullying ... and think about what policy makes sense for your community.”

In her remarks to the school board earlier this year, Salvatico said that “every time an iPad is opened in the classroom, our teachers fear that pictures or videos may be taken and will be shared on social media platforms, as a cruel meme. ... We need the message that this type of behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”

Salvatico did not respond to requests for comment Saturday.

A district spokesperson, Jennifer Blake, said officials weren’t sure exactly how many students were involved in creating the accounts. “It’s kind of been word of mouth,” she said Saturday. She added that it wasn’t just teachers who were targeted: A custodian, for instance, was also impersonated.

In a statement provided to The Inquirer on Saturday, district officials said they consulted with law enforcement agencies and legal counsel after learning of the accounts in late February, but “these accounts were created outside of the school and may have represented students’ right to free speech.”

Confidentiality requirements limit the district from providing details about disciplinary actions, but it “worked within the parameters of the law and our legal rights to enact discipline where we have been able,” Goffredo said.

The superintendent added that “while we wish we could do more to hold students accountable, we are legally limited in what action we can take when students communicate off campus during non-school hours on personal devices.”

The Times, citing teachers, reported that the district “briefly suspended several students” in connection with the fake accounts. Among those impersonated was a Spanish teacher, who told the newspaper she found a photo on TikTok of herself with her husband and children accompanied by text that read: “Do you like to touch kids? Answer: Sí.”

Other impersonation accounts included photos with the heads of two male teachers “pasted onto a man and woman partially naked in bed,” according to the newspaper, as well as a photo from another teacher’s wedding with his wife cropped out and replaced with the image of a student.

The Times reported that two female students posted a video on TikTok last month under a handle that used a teacher’s name and described the impostor accounts as jokes that had been blown out of proportion.

Although the two students initially said they would be continuing to post videos — privately, so teachers couldn’t find them — they deleted that message on Friday after the Times asked the school district to notify parents about its article, the newspaper reported. The students also removed the teacher’s name from the account, and wrote: “Guys, we’re not acting as our teachers anymore that’s in the past !!”

The school district has students from Malvern Borough and Charlestown, East Whiteland, and Willistown Townships.

The district said the middle school’s principal held an assembly for eighth graders “to address the responsible use of social media” and sent an email to eighth-grade families notifying them about the fake accounts.

Officials also said they had met one-on-one with impacted teachers “to discuss their concerns and district actions.” The district also removed all teacher photos from its online directory, and said it provided middle school teachers with resources about how to access counseling services and protect themselves online.

In his message to parents Saturday night, Goffredo asked that they also have conversations with their children about responsible use of technology, “especially social media.”

“What seemingly feels like a joke has deep and long-lasting impacts, not just for the targeted person but for the students themselves,” Goffredo said.

Staff writer William Bender contributed to this article.