(Image Souce: Juvenile Justice)
BY MEGAN FAROKHMANESH
Friends no more, says Missouri. By August 28, student-teacher friendships on social networking sites will be prohibited -- by law. MeVio has more:
“Missouri recently banned student-teacher Facebook friendships under a law preventing students from having social relationships with their teachers. The law specifically prevents “exclusive access to students, which bans using Facebook for things like private study groups.”
It’s called the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act -- and it’s designed to prevent inappropriate conduct between students and teachers.
The law puts a tight lock on private communications -- a first step to prevent breaking boundaries. According to the Missouri State Teacher Association -- on Facebook or Twitter, any communication...
“...must be accessible to the administrators and parents...communication must be publicly posted on the Facebook wall and that no personal communications can be made via direct messaging or chats.”
But just what exactly is “inappropriate conduct?” Critics say, therein lies the catch. The bill itself is unclear on the exact rules. In an interview with KSPR, a Nixa, Missouri School District spokesperson says the wording is vague.
“It says current and former students, that’s what the bill reads. Does that mean students you’ve had in the classroom, the school district? What if you’ve changed school districts?”
And -- more importantly -- how can it be monitored and enforced? Mashable asks,
“Will the state be allowed to access Facebook accounts, personal computers or Internet service provider records to see who’s befriending teachers or students? Inappropriate relationships will be hard to detect, especially since [those] involved in such relationships would probably be concealing their communications.”
But not everyone is on board. Critics say the bill implies misconduct on the part of all teachers. Gizmodo says,
“By banning Facebook friendships, it’s almost accusing all teachers of some sort of blanket guilt, like they’re all going to make that mistake one of these days. No like.”
Randy Turner -- a Joplin East Middle School teacher -- points out that many students were located after the destruction of the Joplin tornado through Facebook. Turner slams the law -- blogging...
“...hundreds of teachers across the state who have effectively used Facebook and other social networking sites to communicate with students, and I am one of those, will have to trash years worth of work, because all teachers are potential criminals in Sen. Cunningham’s view.”
Like it or not, Missouri’s law is here to stay. By January 1, 2012, every school district in Missouri is required to adopt a written policy on student-teacher communications.
