Missouri Law Says Students, Teachers Can't Be Facebook Friends

An anonymous reader writes "Teachers can be friendly with their students, but they can't be their friends, at least when it comes to social networks such as Facebook. State Governor Jay Nixon has signed Senate Bill 54, which goes into effect on August 28, 2011 in the state of Missouri. In other words, later this month it will be illegal for students and teachers to be friends online."

Comments

Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?

[elrous0]

Wow, that place has changed a lot since I was there. Back in my day, we didn't even have clothes. Just ran around naked and illiterate all day.

Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?

[swordgeek]

They still do. They just make facebook posts about it now.

Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?

[SputnikPanic]

Apparently they do have the internet in Missouri. They might, however, be lacking the Constitution. Doesn't this touch on "freedom of association" issues?

Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?

[UnknowingFool]

Your analogy is not apt as there is a difference between dating and associating. Also the restriction means they lose the license for unprofessional conduct. The state did not make it illegal for them to date.

Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?

[monoqlith]

Either way it is a penalty and an attempt to regulate freedom of association outside of school. I'm not sure if it qualifies as a rational interest for the government to prevent "friend-ing" online - someone would have to prove that it really does bring down incidences of inappropriate contact/sexual molestation/etc. And if we can't trust our teachers not to molest our children, using Facebook or any other conduit, then aren't there deeper problems here?

Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?

[dgatwood]

The wrong side if they rule the way you think they will. The problem is that if a student and teacher are friends on Facebook, that is largely out in the open. It's the email messages, the phone calls late at night, the notes passed during school, etc. that are going to be the problem—the stuff that's under the table.

It is just plain arbitrary to single out Facebook and other social networking services while ignoring other Internet services like email and instant messaging, other telecommunications services like phone calls and texting, etc. It's like saying that students are not allowed to call teachers on Friday night because they might be arranging a date, ignoring the fact that they could call on Thursday night and trivially get around the whole problem.

No, where this sort of law fails is in the equal protection clause. One communications service should be treated the same as another, and this fails to do so by not being nearly broad enough, and a law that is broad enough would be struck down as unreasonable restraint of speech.

Either way, this law is what happens when technologically ignorant government officials see something bad happening and instead of asking, "Could we have reasonably prevented this?" or "How can we teach people to be better at spotting abusers?" instead ask, "What law can we pass so that this very narrow, specific case can never happen again (unless someone who is already going to break the law decides to break a second law)?" And that, in a single sentence, sums up everything that is wrong with criminal law today.

Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?

[mini me]

I am assuming at first blush the prevention of child molesting

That is ridiculous. It is impossible to molest anyone on Facebook. The classroom, however, provides an excellent venue to play out the crime. If teachers cannot be trusted, it seems Facebook (or other online service) should be the only place students and teachers interact.

Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?

[dgatwood]

My core point was that Facebook chat, pokes, etc. are functionally no different than email and AIM, but it sounds like they are being singled out.

Also, the fact that the Facebook friendship even exists is evidence that the student considers that teacher to be a friend, not just a colleague, which means that the parents know to more carefully scrutinize how their children interact with that teacher. And that's what I mean about it being out in the open. It makes clear something that otherwise would be hidden. Thus, in effect, this law is likely to make it harder to catch predators, not easier.

Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?

[contrapunctus]

It probably protects the teachers more than anything else.
If you're a teacher and your student posts pictures of themselves getting drunk, what is you legal obligation?
Are you an accessory? What if the student dies from drinking and parents sue you for not doing anything when you knew about it? etc
Also there are privacy issues regarding teachers and studens (not as bad a doctors) that can be easily violated.

I'm not saying it's not a stupid law, but to be honest you have to be a really stupid teacher to friend your students and expect your job to be safe.

Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?

[lgw]

Even the state motto sucks. "The Show-me state?" Here's a new motto for ya: "At least we're not West Virginia."

As someone who grew up in West Virginia, I represent that comment.

Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?

[bws111]

Did you bother to read the actual bill, or just the rantings of some blogger? Nowhere in the bill does it mention Facebook or 'friends'. All it says is that school districts must have a written policy concerning teacher-student and employee-student communications. This policy must include

Appropriate use of electronic media such as text messaging and internet sites for both instructional and personal purposes, with an element concerning use of social networking sites no less stringent than the provisions of subsections 2, 3, and 4 of this section.

No that it does NOT say Facebook is 'banned', only that use of social media must be addressed just like all other electronic media.

When you read subsections 2,3, and 4 you will find that what they are requiring is that any contact between a teacher and a student must be accessible by the student's parent or legal guardian.

Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?

[bws111]

The actual law makes no distinction between any of those methods of communication. It says that each school district must have a POLICY for appropriate teacher-student communications. Communication (as defined by the law) includes oral and non-verbal communication. Non-verbal communication includes "electronic media", and electronic media includes "social networking". Social media is not being singled out for anything; at most it is being hilighted as an area not to be forgotten. And the only thing banned is communication (including web pages, social media, etc) that is 'exclusive' between the teacher and student. Exclusive, as defined in the law, means that the student's parent or guardian and/or school administration do not have access.

Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?

[jackbird]

Before it was hard to fire civil servants, new administrations would fire everybody upon taking office and replace them with hacks who had done something (or who were related to people who had done something) to advance the politician's career. This led to widespread incompetence, in addition to being thoroughly corrupt.

Bear in mind that "answerable to the taxpayer" really means "answerable to the elected official purportedly representing the taxpayer. This is especially important to remember during a time when opposing the entire concept of government is apparently a popular political ideology.

Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?

[Rary]

The problem is that if a student and teacher are friends on Facebook, that is largely out in the open. It's the email messages, the phone calls late at night, the notes passed during school, etc. that are going to be the problem—the stuff that's under the table. ... It is just plain arbitrary to single out Facebook and other social networking services while ignoring other Internet services like email and instant messaging, other telecommunications services like phone calls and texting, etc.

Try reading the Bill. It does not single out Facebook friends— in fact, it never even mentions Facebook. What it actually is targeting is precisely what you said: private communication.

What we have here is a TV station claiming the Bill is too vague, then a blogger interpreting the TV station's interpretation as meaning that friending on Facebook will not be allowed, and finally the Slashdot summary writer interpreting that interpretation of the previous interpretation as meaning that students being online friends with teachers will be illegal.

As usual, the Slashdot summary and the reality are only distantly related.

Law not really needed, just common sense

[ShaunC]

Senate Bill 54 is dubbed the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act. It is named after a Missouri public school student who was repeatedly molested by a teacher several decades ago.

Several decades ago? Yeah, definitely Facebook's fault! Let's make a law!

This is already policy in a lot of school districts, simply because there are too many potential problems that could arise between students and teachers becoming too "friendly." Even where it's not policy, I can't imagine why any teacher in their right mind would accept the risk of "friending" students online. I think it ought to remain a district-level thing, though.

Teachers already do this on their own

[sandytaru]

My husband (prof) routinely turns down any students that try to friend him on Facebook. Heck, he's paranoid about having anyone at his school friend him, including his fellow professors. I've also got a similar policy for work - NONE of my current coworkers are on my FB, only ones from previous jobs. It's sad they felt the need to legislate common sense.

Re:Teachers already do this on their own

[supercrisp]

If you're posting those things, and you think that your coworkers don't know about them, I suggest you think again. My policy is to not post anything that can't stand the bright light of day. But I'm in education, and we tend to value the exchange of ideas slightly more than the business world at large. (And that "slightly" isn't meant in any ironic way. It's only slightly.)

Dumb question...

[nebaz]

What happens if your teacher is your parent?

Re:Dumb question...

[scubamage]

I'm wondering this as well. Even more - what about homeschooled children?

Re:Good...

[Penguinisto]

I disagree.

Many of my former students (I last taught in 2005) are connected to me on LinkedIn, and it's amazing to watch how they've progressed since they left and set out on their careers. The teaching salary sucked, and the politics sucked even worse (I still know of a few rather petty little individuals at the school who can burn in hell if it were up to me). However, the feeling of watching what were once students with a passion for the craft, now working as successful systems administrators and programmers? That my friend is pretty frickin' awesome. Watching oen of them get on at Juniper as an engineer was especially fulfilling, professionally.

Besides, it benefits them as well, since most still list me as a reference, which especially came in handy when they first began working out there.

Re:Good...

[scubamage]

I'm interested in this as well; I am dating a teacher. What happens if our child ends up being taught by her?

Sad new paranoid world

[hoggoth]

I see everyone is in agreement with this.
It's a shame. When I was a teenager I was friends with one of my teachers. He took me under his wing, brought me to cool places that I wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise. He became friends with my family. Never an inappropriate touch or word.

But everyone knows now that all men are child molesters, especially teachers.

Re:Sad new paranoid world

[ProzacPatient]

I thought about this too. We have such a broken education system to the point that its because a bureaucratic paper pushing institution and a poster child for election campaigns.
I think I understand the intent of this law but teachers can often inspire their students to reach for great achievements if they're allowed to interact with their students and not have to treat them like drones. The type of teacher I'm talking about are ones like Erin Gruwell.

Re:Teacher friending student is inapprorpiate

[ArcCoyote]

Which is why (if you RTFA) you'll see the law does not ban student-teacher relationships on social networks, but ensures they can be supervised.

A teacher can't personally friend students, but a teacher can create a Facebook group for the class and invite the students, just as long as the school administration and parents are also allowed to join.

Re:Good...

[DanTheStone]

I've definitely seen exceptions in courses with only one teacher, like a band teacher or a foreign language teacher that is a relative. Some schools are not huge enough to have multiple teachers for every discipline.

Re:The first amendment

[kaellinn18]

Because Congress didn't enact this law?

Horseshit

[Anonymous Coward]

And kind of creepy as well. I would be perfectly comfortable with a teacher being fired for friending his students on facebook.

Unbelievable. So, teachers are all potential pedophiles, eh?

In this day and age finding decent role models is near impossible. Politicians are all lying scumbags. Business leaders are cheating sons of bitches. Scientists are spineless cowards. And entertainers are just garbage.

There were actually a few teachers in my day who actually took the depressed, shy, abused, and withdrawn child that I was and inspired me to try to do better. Some of them were able to pull talents out of me that I didn't realize that I possessed. If I had more contact with them - on a professional and even friend level - I think that my life would be much much better.

Looking back from my middle aged wisdom, I can see teachers who were enthusiastic about teaching and their subjects - they loved children. The thought of them molesting or doing anything to harm a child (0-18 years old) doesn't even cross my mind.

I have known sleazy people who preyed on children - they did it in private and they were slick about it - they would never do it on Facebook - to great of a chance of being caught.

Re:Good...

[LearnToSpell]

Obviously you'd have to give the child up for adoption.

Just getting tougher and tougher...

[cayenne8]

Geez, they're just making it harder and harder for a guy to get laid by his good looking teacher....

*sigh*

Re:The first amendment

[FreelanceWizard]

Doesn't matter due to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Incorporation Doctrine.

Not just students, all kids, who can blame them.

[HornWumpus]

Spend six hours a day with the spastic snot monkeys and see if you want to do anything but strangle them.