NMSD addressing the Facebook dilemma

As social networking and texting become the norm, the North Marion School District is looking at banning teachers from ”befriending” students on Facebook and texting outside of school

  • By: Charissa Bernard 
  • Published: 11/18/2009 8:57:58 AM
  • Last Updated: 11/19/2009 1:37:21 PM
Photo By: Charissa BernardShould teachers befriend students on Facebook?
North Marion High School students Talmai Flores and Janet Mendoza check their text messages during a break in school last week. The district is looking to keep teachers and students from interacting outside of school hours or from school-related activities.
What started in a Harvard dorm room in 2004 has expanded to 300 million active users who spend 8 billion minutes on Facebook every day worldwide. Facebook and other similar social network sites have become so popular, to the point where individual school districts are taking notice. The issue of monitoring students and teachers in this digital age was the topic of discussion at the most recent North Marion School Board meeting Nov. 12. At the meeting, a new policy came to the board for a second reading regarding the use of cell phones and social media during school and, to some extent, outside of school.
 
“These are really the hottest policies right now,” North Marion School District Superintendent Linda Reeves told the board during the meeting. “That’s why we are doing a second reading and review on these … to see where you felt we came up short with our revisions that we made.”
 
This new policy originally came from the Oregon School Boards Association (OSBA), and, before the November regular meeting, the board made revisions to OSBA’s suggestions. This proposed policy includes rules stating that neither staff nor students be permitted to use personal communication devices, such as cell phones, PDAs, laptops with wireless capability or iPods during instructional time.
 
It also restricts staff from texting students about non-school-related activities. During board discussion prior to the Nov. 12 meeting, a board member also suggested adding a statement that restricts staff members from accepting North Marion students as friends on Facebook.
 
When the second reading of this proposed policy came out at the Nov. 12 meeting, there was mixed reaction amid those in attendance.
 
One parent questioned whether or not that kind of restriction is unfair to teachers who are mentoring students through new technology like Facebook.
 
NMSD Board Director James Moore questions whether or not social networking sites are the appropriate place for this.
 
“Is there no other way to communicate that is appropriate for a teacher to mentor a student?”
 
Renee Young, who is an instructional assistant at North Marion High School, noted that she uses Facebook to monitor her middle-school-aged son and his friends, who attend North Marion schools.
 
“It’s more for me as a supervisory thing,” said Younger.
 
“As a parent, it’s a concern to me that I might not be able to do that.”
 
In discussion, the board noted that they realized the vast majority of teachers only use social networking sites for good, but policies must be put into place to guard the teachers against possible trouble.
 
“I feel like we have to be proactive to protect our staff, rather than open the door and allow someone to inadvertently put themselves in a position of compromise,” said Lori Wells, NMSD director of technology.
“I do feel like we need to protect our teachers because some of them just don’t understand the liability they are placing themselves into.”
 
One such liability is mandatory reporting. Oregon law states that any public or private official having reasonable cause to believe that any child with whom the official comes in contact has suffered abuse or that any person with whom the official comes in contact has abused a child shall immediately report this to authorities.
 
In the meeting, board director Lisa Holum brought up the possible situation where a teacher inadvertently overlooks some kind of activity on Facebook that would otherwise initiate mandatory reporting.
 
“Say they only check their Facebook once a month and they miss something and it comes back to where, ‘You got this information sent, why didn’t you say something, you’re a mandatory reporter …’” she said.
 
“(I’m) kind of wondering where did the mentoring blur in with the socializing?” said board director Heidi Torian. ”What is mentoring? Are you their pal? Their friend? Where does the professionalism stop?”
 
For North Marion High School teacher Susan Huffman, that line is hard to define.
 
“There are certainly no objections to the idea that what you are posting needs to be appropriate,” said Huffman, who is the president of North Marion’s teachers union. “(But) that’s a pretty broad statement to say that they can’t have those students as friends just because they are students at North Marion. There are situations where that doesn’t make sense to me.”
 
These situations included if the student is a family friend, or has some other kind of connection to that teacher outside of the classroom.
 
Huffman also mentioned she did not believe the school could legally restrict what teachers do in their private lives.
 
“We’re also people and we also have lives outside of the district and some of those lives involve people within the district in a personal sense,” she said. “I have a concern that each school district or an individual school district would come up with its own rules that are beyond the law.”
 
In an interview after the board meeting, Reeves said she plans to take the proposed policy to district legal counsel this week to make sure it is within the law. She anticipates that the proposed policy will have to be changed to fit within the First Amendment, which outlines freedom of speech.
 
“In this district, we’re not about taking away or limiting anyone’s Constitutional rights,” Reeves said. “It’s our responsibility that we make sure we are following the law and that we feel we need to protect our teachers too.”
 
After the district’s legal counsel, Bruce Zagar, has evaluated the proposed policy, Reeves will present the findings to the board at the next regular board meeting, Dec. 14.
The school districts surrounding North Marion have not created policies completely preventing student-teacher interaction through social network sites, but they understand it is an issue to be addressed. 
 
“Use of social networking sites for communicating with students is not considered best practice and strongly discouraged,” said Gervais School District Superintendent Rick Hensel. “We’re balancing between First Amendment rights and a common sense approach to a student-teacher relationship.”
 
“It’s one of those things that I think would be a hard policy to enforce and so I don’t think we are really considering a policy,” said Chuck Dinsfriend, the technology director for the Woodburn School District.
 
“We’ve tried to make it perfectly clear that (teachers) need to be extremely careful,” said Mt. Angel Superintendent Bob Young.
 
“If you are crossing any kind of potential where anybody could identify you and or then tie that to any kids, there’s going to be a real problem that we’re going to have to deal with.”

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blueinoregon from woodburn
11/18/2009 10:29:10 AM

As a parent of a North Marion student, I am not surprised but disappointed in the direction the school board is taking in this matter. Social Networking is here to stay and it is up to us "old foggies" to get with the program. This can be a valuable asset to our educational community in reaching students. When so many things can pull kids away from school, connecting with teachers will pull them back in. Face it, it is NOT the classes that brings the kids back day after day it is the relationships they have in school. Just like at work, our children spend more time with their classmates and teachers than many of them spend with their parents. If a teacher posts/texts something inappropriate to students then that is a performance issue that should be addressed through the proper channels. I am sure that "our" awesome teachers at NMSD understand the immense responsiblity that they have and they ,as always, will act appropriately.GO HUSKIES!!

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