Mississippi districts restrict electronic communications with students
The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson reports that school districts across the state are telling students not to text their teachers or communicate with them on social networking sites. Noting a "casual rapport" between students and teachers, the Lamar County School Board earlier this month prohibited teachers and students from communicating via text messages or social networking sites. Other districts are taking similar step. For the last two to three years, the Mississippi School Boards Association has been advising districts to develop policies. The state Department of Education's Office of Safe and Orderly Schools has encouraged districts to do the same, telling them that such communication isn't secure and is easily misconstrued. While the technological communication is taboo in the K-12 arena, it's perfectly acceptable in higher education. John Forde, head of the communication department at Mississippi State University, said social networking sites are sometimes the best way to get a message to students about class, and he sees an increasing number of teachers and students using it for schoolwork, which he doesn't see as problematic.
But the lines between faculty and students are more formal in K-12, where most students are under the legal age of consent. Text messages and social networking, educators say, provide the kind of private communication that sets the stage for inappropriate behavior. "If you look at those cases where school employees have lost their jobs, you'll see that almost every one of them is characterized by an extensive text-messaging relationship," said Jim Keith, an MSBA attorney who works at Adams and Reese, a law firm that represents 10 school districts. It's fine, he said, for students to communicate on school district-maintained Web sites. Those sites, officials said, can provide information about schoolwork and are monitored by the school officials. And educators say it's OK for coaches to send the entire team a text message about things such as practice times or cancellations. In those instances, everyone gets the same message, Keith said.
Source: Jackson Clarion-Ledger, 7/27/08, By LaRaye Brown, with Associated Press
[Editor’s Note: An ABC News story quotes Lamar County school board attorney Rick Norton, who initiated the policy prohibiting “fraternization via the Internet between employees...and students,” as explaining, "This was just an attempt by us to put into policy that there doesn't need to be any informal socialization between teachers and students. The main thing is that we actually encourage interaction via the Internet for educational purposes. What we're trying to prevent is communication of an inappropriate nature." Lamar’s superintendent Ben Burnett adds, "The downside is that part of being a good teacher is having a good relationship with a kid. You have to get to know a child to form a relationship, and then education can happen. In fact, no learning will happen until then. But we have so many different avenues for educational communication, and have really incorporated technology in so many ways in trying to change the culture of how we educate students, that we felt we could do this for the safety of the kids." The ABC News article also notes a widely reported 2007 Associated Press investigation, summarized at the second link below, of teacher sexual misconduct nationwide. Mr. Keith has written a resource on such misconduct, available for download at the third link. The fourth link is to an overview of investigating school employee misconduct including the misuse of technology, also available for a nominal download fee.]
ABC News.com, 7/24/08, By Jon Wiener
NSBA School Law pages on sexual misconduct
COSA eDocs Store resource on educator sexual misconduct, By James A. Keith
COSA eDocs Store resource on investigating employee technology use, By Jeffrey J. Horner