Many students see them in their feed or pop up in their recommended: school-related, student-run Instagram accounts. These types of accounts span from formal college decision announcements to playful rankings of water fountains, chairs or stairs. While the owners of these accounts occasionally run into obstacles posting content about the school community, they mostly provide educational or entertaining posts that bring students together.
Senior Jane Higgins runs @spaclassof2024offical, and she describes this endeavor to be a fulfilling experience. The account shares seniors’ plans for next year—mostly college decisions—and also information such as unique summer plans, gap years or sports commitments.
“Violet [Benson] and I made the second decisions account because the first one went mysteriously dead, and a lot of people were waiting so long for theirs to be posted,” Higgins said.
The first senior decisions account, which surfaced last spring, posted about 19 senior’s plans before it stopped being active.
Since then, the new account reposted all of the previous posts and has continued posting consistently. It currently has 45 posts.
“I have had a ton of fun with it … I feel like I’m giving back a little bit,” Higgins said.
Higgins designs the posts in Canva, and she noted that she had to learn a little bit of digital design in order keep everything looking professional and cohesive.
She took inspiration from the SPA senior decisions accounts from years past as well as other schools’. When she began running the account, she made slight tweaks from the original one, including changing the font and layout of the text.
Senior Bridget Keel’s account represents the more goofy end of the spectrum of Instagram accounts.
Keel created @spartans_caught_sleeping, an account that shares images of students napping on campus. Given that the students featured were photographed unknowingly, Keel is careful to get the subjects’ approval before posting them.
“SPA has a very strict Photo/Video policy. So, in order to be posted on the account, the subject of the photo has to give some proof of consent, whether that’s a screenshot, a video, a voice memo—or they can just DM me. Any of those work. And then I get their tag, and then I post it with the reassurance that they actually wanted to be on the internet,” Keel said.
SPA has a very strict Photo/Video policy. So, in order to be posted on the account, the subject of the photo has to give some proof of consent, whether that’s a screenshot, a video, a voice memo—or they can just DM me. Any of those work. And then I get their tag, and then I post it with the reassurance that they actually wanted to be on the internet
— Bridget Keel
Keel explains that she has occasionally dealt with students lying in order to embarrass their friends. In the past, people have fabricated the consent of their friends in order to get a photo posted of their sleeping friend without permission.
In those cases, after realizing the mistake, “I just had to take down the post,” Bridget said.
Overall, Bridget believes that Spartans Caught Sleeping is a fun, lighthearted way to get students together.
“I get great joy out of this,” she said.
Other student-run accounts include sports team pages, an account for Advanced Science Research or Advanced History Research or even advisory accounts. These Instagram accounts cover everything from sharing student achievements to showing what a class has been working on. They ultimately foster connection and bring the student body together.
