New Missouri Law May Make It Illegal To Friend Your Former Teachers On Facebook
from the for-the-children! dept
Gabriel Tane points us to another odd state law coming out of Missouri, where it appears that schoolteachers could run afoul of the law if they friend any former student on Facebook. Part of the problem here is that the law in question is worded incredibly vaguely. But the text does say:Teachers cannot establish, maintain, or use a work-related website unless it is available to school administrators and the child's legal custodian, physical custodian, or legal guardian. Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student.This is the part that would seem to cover friending any current or former student on Facebook. While plenty of teachers I know refuse to friend students on Facebook just out of principle (and general caution), to make it illegal seems extreme. That's doubly true when it includes "former" students. At some point, former students grow up and become fully functioning adults (one hopes). At that point, does it still make sense to make it illegal for the student and teacher to have contact? Update: As pointed out in the comments, the law does define "former student" to mean someone under the age of 18, meaning that former students over the age of 18 can be friended safely...
The bill is clearly targeted at stopping sexual relationships between teachers and students, which is a perfectly admirable goal. But, like so many laws, it appears this one was written very poorly, and creates massive unintended consequences.
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Filed Under: friending, missouri, teachers
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Note that this is not as bad as it seems though. In the bill: "Former student is defined as any person who was at one time a student at the school at which the teacher is employed and who is eighteen years of age or less and who has not graduated." So catching up with your old high school teachers would be fine.
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SECTION 162.069 - By January 1, 2012, every school district must develop a written policy concerning teacher-student communication and employee-student communications. Each policy must include appropriate oral and nonverbal personal communication, which may be combined with sexual harassment policies, and appropriate use of electronic media as described in the act, including social networking sites. Teachers cannot establish, maintain, or use a work-related website unless it is available to school administrators and the child's legal custodian, physical custodian, or legal guardian. Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student. Former student is defined as any person who was at one time a student at the school at which the teacher is employed and who is eighteen years of age or less and who has not graduated.
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Yet another idiotic law that comes from the rotten moralism seed.
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Whether it applies to all teachers or not, the bottom line is that this probably won't prevent a single case of child abuse. It might actually prevent a child from reaching out to a teacher for help with another abuser.
This law apparently applies to sites such as Linkedin as well as Facebook. It has become pretty common for teachers (high school and college) to write letters of reference for their students through Linkedin. But that is just one of many babies being thrown out with the bath water by this law.
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The real question is if the person is 18 but does not have the school listed or there age shared how can you be sure that it is ok.
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As far as teachers go, they don't have to *directly* comply with this, either. They just need to comply with the policy of their individual school district (which is required to be in compliance with what is stated in the law.)
That doesn't mean I agree with the law. But before you can oppose it, you need to know what it IS.
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Leave it to the illiterate hicks in Missouri...
"Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student."
What does "have a [...] website" mean? Does that mean to own one? To operate one? To participate in one that someone else owns and operates? What if it's not a web site, but a newsgroup (NNTP) or a mailing list (SMTP) or something else?
Missouri's legislators should probably stick to what they know best: supporting institutional racism and bigotry.
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Re: Leave it to the illiterate hicks in Missouri...
Show links or admit you made this up. Missouri's legislators have made a lot of poor decisions in the last few years, including overturning the will of the voters on some laws and skating on some incredibly thin ethical ice on some issues, but I can't find a single instance of what you claim.
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Think of the children!
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My plants will grow well thanks to the fertilizer.
The statement in parens is the problem in this country. Every teacher, especially if they're male, is a pedophile first, teacher second.
Benjamin Franklin was more a genius than Einstein.
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what the schools should have done is set up web sites open to the parents, teachers, school, and students in order to allow the exchange of information in an open forum and required everyone to use it, on penalty of chemical castration
what the students should have done is claim every teacher in the building has molested them on multiple occasions. no particular reason, just for lulz.
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And they think it's hard to find teachers now.
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Confused again
Am I missing something obvious? What is "exclusive" access vis-a-vis a publicly-browsable website?
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Re: Confused again
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So,
What a bunch of Nimrods.
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Re: So,
> who was also my 9th grade history teacher
> I could get arrested?
Even better: what if you went to school where your actual parent is a teacher? Could your parents be legally barred from communicating with you or 'friending' you on the internet?
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Re: Re: So,
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One can hope that when the districts actually implement these policies, they are written a bit better and have exceptions for things like relatives.
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Any type of technology could be used for inappropriate behavior between staff and students - email would be the easiest - but let's make use of technology where it can help!
--Kent
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There was a news story a month or two ago about one of the charter schools who require that their teachers have times in the evening where students and parents can contact them for assistance with assignments - and how Facebook has made it easy for teachers to do this without causing undue disruptions to the rest of their lives.
Great law. Make it illegal for teachers to be able to assist their students in the ways that make it easy for both teachers and students.
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> about one of the charter schools who require
> that their teachers have times in the evening
> where students and parents can contact them
> for assistance with assignments
Sheesh. Talk about an incredible imposition on what little free time teachers have to themselves.
HUSBAND: Hey, want to go out to dinner or see a movie tonight?
WIFE: No, I have to be at home in front of the computer from 8-9 PM tonight (and every other night, too) so that if a student or parent needs to ask me a question on Facebook, I'll be available to answer it.
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What about ur MOM
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Pen & Paper (RPG....maybe?)
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One Less Reason to Use Facebook
So now I'll have no reason to ever go there again. I mean, I'm in Alabama, but anything that's "for the children" spreads like wildfire.
Dammit Google, open up Plus to Google Apps users now please!
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It's easy to see the thought process behind this law, but as always there will be unintended consequences for teachers and students. They're going to destroy so many good productive and helpful relationships because the good teachers will be worried about the new law. And the bad/predatory teachers obviously don't care about breaking one extra law if they're already planning on breaking much more serious laws.
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So instead of going to jail, you'll just lose your job. At least that's SLIGHTLY more reasonable.
On the other hand, when it says "allows exclusive access"... that doesn't even say you need to GRANT exclusive access, just that it "allows" it. Since Facebook does allow you to friend people, I think just having a Facebook page is in violation of this policy, poorly written as it is.
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Instead of "New Missouri Law May Make It Illegal To Friend Your Former Teachers On Facebook", how about "New Missouri Law May Prohbit Friending Your Former Teachers On Facebook"? (Well, technically they are prohibited from friending you, there's nothing stopping you from friending them.)
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Re: "Exclusive Access"
The problem is over-recation stupidity. You can't look at other people's children, you can't take pictures if they are in the picture, you can't offer to help a child; even a female teacher nowadays is frightened to hug them; you don't want to be alone in a room with them, you don't want to discuss anything beyond the classroom, especially nothing to enthusiatically...
I have an idea -why don't they just make it illegal to have inappropriate sexual contact (touch or speech) with a child and then... enforce that law.
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JUST SOMEBODY PLEEEEEEEEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?
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Another law named after a victim
So instead of introducing legislation (or school policy as one AC points out) that would allow these public channels to be monitored... we're going to force the 'problem connections' further out of the light and make them harder to see.
Or, and I know this is a wild idea, how about parents TEACH THIER CHILDREN THAT ADVANCES BY TEACHERS ARE A BAD THING! And (yeah, I know... CRAZY...) those same parents can help keep an eye on what thier kids are doing! SHOCKING.
We've tried abstinence education... failed.
We've tried censorship... failing.
We've tried relying on technology to raise our kids... failed
We've tried censoring the technology... failed in flames.
Parental responsibility in raising children and teaching the basics of social interaction at home... haven't tried that yet, have we?
Yet another example of politicians and lawmakers trying to win favor by acting 'for the kids' without actually doing anything about the symptom... MUCH less anything about the problem.
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It says a teacher can't have his/her own "work-related" site that is not accessible by admins and parents. Further, it says a teacher's personal website (non-work related) must be available to all, or zero current/former students. No exclusive access for any particular student.
That's all it says.
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New Missouri Law May Make It Illegal for your Teacher to friend you On Facebook
I know it not as sensational, but more accurate
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This does not even mention the scariest part.
It scares the hell out of me that one of my legislators has her head so far in the sand that she thinks addressing this single supposed "pathway" is truly going to eliminate inappropriate teacher-student sexual relationships.
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/08/02/3053598/new-missouri-law-on-social-media.html#storylink=mis earch
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