New Missouri law is making it illegal for teachers to correspond privately with students via social media. For instance, Facebook chat between a student and their teacher would be considered illegal while a wall post would be fair game. What's Trending Live raised the question: Are private student/teacher interactions online all bad?
Panelist Trend Hunter TV's Jeremy Gutsche found this particular law a good thing, saying private interactions "gets a little weird" and that he doesn't think "it's really necessary for a teacher to have private conversations in that social setting of Facebook."
Actress Brea Grant disagreed asking, "Can't we just trust our teachers? If we don't trust them then they shouldn't be in the school system."
Shira pointed out that some the concerns about one on one online conversations might stem from fears over how new social networking tools are, "starting to infiltrate our lives more."
Of the teacher opinions online, a Missouri teacher named Randy Turner rang loudest when she wrote a blog post arguing that she and hundreds of teachers will have to "trash years of work because all teachers are potential criminals" in Missouri Senator Jane Cunningham's view.
Some local and national media have interpreted the social-networking measures to mean teachers cannot become “friends” with students or contact them in any way on Facebook.
The ACLU, meanwhile, has raised concerns that the language may be so restrictive that teachers could not legally open an account on networking sites used by students.
Bill sponsors and state-level education groups, however, contend the language does allow teachers to have presences on the sites, to be friends with students and to send them messages — but only if those messages are public and readily visible to parents and school administrators.
“This law in no way stops communication with students,” said Sen. Jane Cunningham, the St. Louis County Republican who sponsored the bill. “In fact, we encourage social-media contact with students. We just require it to be appropriate, meaning it is not hidden from parents or from school personnel.”
Cunningham said private online messages represent a “pathway to sexual misconduct” that should be closed off to ensure children’s safety.
But since the bill’s passage, teachers, officials representing school districts and educators and legal groups have raised concerns that the law could limit legitimate communication, sow confusion among educators and perhaps even generate a legal challenge.
Randy Turner, an eighth-grade English teacher and prominent blogger from Joplin, Mo., said teachers communicate with students through internet sites because that’s the venue students are most comfortable using.
“Right now, Facebook is the way they communicate,” Turner said of his students.
Sometimes those communications might be public posts about class work or clubs, he said, but other times students may have specific questions about homework, grades or problems with other students — issues better suited to a private conversation.
“If you have a student who’s having a problem in a particular class, they don’t want to tell the whole world they’re having a problem,” Turner explained.
Turner, who frequently writes about education issues on his blog, accused the legislation of “targeting classroom teachers.”
In practice, he said, the bill probably would confuse teachers about what is and isn’t allowable online conduct and stifle legitimate and valuable conversations with students.
The few bad teachers who do seek to prey on students, he argued, will be able to maintain illicit communications through any number of other media, whether it’s e-mail, text messages or a hand-written note.
“The people who are targeted — the people who bring disgrace upon the teaching profession — this isn’t going to do a thing to stop them,” Turner said.
Although the legislation as a whole received support from several education and teachers’ organizations, some of those groups have since questioned the social-media language.
Otto Fajen, a lobbyist for the Missouri National Education Association teachers’ union, said his organization would have preferred less specific language in state law, so that school boards would have more freedom to set teacher-student communication guidelines in their own communities.
“We would’ve preferred a little more hands-off approach at the state level,” Fajen said.
Similarly, officials at the Missouri School Boards’ Association aren’t sure why the law focuses on social-media communication.
“The bottom line is … our policy on communication is not as concerned about the method of the communication as about the content of that communication,” said Kelli Hopkins, an associate executive director for the association.
Cunningham, however, maintains that sites such as Facebook represent a unique threat to school-age children and must be addressed specifically.
“If social media are a pathway to sexual misconduct — which we have found that they are — then eventually (this law) is going to stop the whole problem,” she said.
But several observers have suggested the legislation could face a legal challenge on First Amendment grounds.
Under the ACLU’s interpretation, the law may go too far in its attempts to limit inappropriate communications between educators and students, said Tony Rother, legal director for the ACLU of Eastern Missouri.
“This is like taking a sledgehammer to kill a fly,” Rothert said. “It silences a lot more speech than is necessary to address the actual problem.
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