I've also found that my kids' school sometimes _only_ sends out notifications or surveys via Facebook, even though they have two other specific systems they pay for that are specifically made for parent/school communications.

A pubic school? This sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Go on. How so?

The most obvious one to me is violations of FERPA rules and posting private information/pictures of my kids in a public forum.

1) OP stated they were "notifications and polls", neither of which would contain private information or pictures.

2) You make the assumption that the school does not have a private / protected group that is used for verifying group members and protecting content from non-members.

I do make that assumption because your average staff member that would manage something like that, would do the easy path of default settings (which are probably public).

Agreed on all counts. It is the only reason I go to Facebook.

As you said the irony is that it is worse in almost every way except sign up friction. The content isn't even being spidered in any way by Google or the like so discovering the content in these groups later is also nigh impossible.

Just a travesty.

> The content isn't even being spidered in any way by Google or the like so discovering the content in these groups later is also nigh impossible.

This is huge too. It's so hard to archive the data on these closed platforms - especially if you need an account ot view the data. There's a massive loss of knowledge when these platforms inevitably shutter.

I think this may be why some groups use it. I have involved myself in many online business groups (real estate, mlm, etc) and they have a good reason to use facebook groups. They are very easy to control what voices are heard. For example to submit a post to one group which you have to pay +$2500 to enter every post has to be approved by the administrator before it's visible.