Teachers are asked to remove their students from Facebook friends

The administration of one of the schools in Florida advises teachers not to “friend” students on social networks, arguing that the connection between the teacher and the student in this environment is “inappropriate”.
This week, Lee County school management issued a list of instructions for teachers who told them not to interact with students in any way through social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. The guidelines, which entered into force for the 2010-2011 academic year, also warn teachers about possible problems and their consequences in connection with the use of this communication tool.

“Employees, regardless of the reasons, should not interact in any way with children studying at school through any public website of a social network,” the document says. “Including“ friendship ”announcements or allowing students access to personal web pages and teacher profiles on social networks.”

This is the first school in the state of Florida, and possibly throughout the United States, outlining the principles of interaction between teachers and students in the social environment.

The document was not issued with the aim of punishing anyone, but as a preventive measure. “We don’t want teachers and students to do something that they will later regret,” said Lee County School Information and Press Director.

He also noted that many stories across the country pushed the administration to take this step, when someone posted something on Facebook, which then turned against him. However, he asked not to consider them the Internet police or Big Brother, the only desire of the administration to help teachers and students with the help of published instructions to make the right decisions.

The proposed document is not binding, and only instruct teachers to adhere to a specific model of behavior.

When teachers and students communicate using social networks, e-mail or text messages, anything can happen that can lead to serious problems for each of the parties. Therefore, the administration recommends that all teachers accept behavior in a certain way on the network so as not to get into trouble later.

Guideline developers hope that their initiative to implement control over the behavior of their employees and establish clear principles of behavior will be picked up in other schools in the future.

An example of a problematic situation is the incident that happened to one of the teachers in Pennsylvania this January, who was suspended from work after one of the school staff posted her photos from the bachelorette party on Facebook. And although the images were online only one day, many of the school's students looked at her photos with a stripper.
The case attracted the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a lawsuit and helped the unfortunate teacher. Her reputation was restored, and the school administration will pay her a salary for the entire time while she was removed from work.

“Educators just need to remove all their students from friends in order to avoid similar incidents in the future. There is absolutely no reason to “make friends” with students on social networks, especially when there are other ways to communicate using school websites or email, ”the developers of the code of rules say.

Social networks continue to grow and many teachers use these sites to find out what is happening with their students or to organize various activities. Lee County recognizes this is a growing trend, but asks teachers to refrain from using social networks or to warn leaders when their use is necessary for educational reasons. Teachers are also encouraged to work through this issue with school webmasters to create school sites where people can exchange information, discuss projects and organize events.

The administration hopes for a positive reaction to the new document, paying attention to the fact that the new rules will remind people that "not everything that can be used in private life can be transferred to professional activities." However, if teachers intend to continue interacting with students through social networks, they must do this very, very carefully.

based on livescience