In Joplin, where 160 people died and hundreds more were injured by a historic tornado in May, several teachers relied on Facebook to track down missing students in the storm’s immediate aftermath.
“I am not a pervert and don’t wish to be treated as one,” Joplin middle school teacher Alana Maddock wrote in an eMail message to Gov. Jay Nixon in June, not long before he signed the legislation. “I am very responsible with my Facebook pages and don’t appreciate being assumed to be a danger to my students.”
The law, which takes effect Aug. 28, does not outright prohibit teachers from interacting with students on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other sites. Instead, it requires local school districts to create written policies by January that outline “appropriate use of electronic media such as text messaging and internet sites for both instructional and personal purposes.”
It will be up to individual districts to define “exclusive access,” but in general the law holds that any contact must be made in the public sphere rather than through private messages. So teachers can set up public Facebook pages or Twitter accounts but can’t reach out to their students as friends or followers, or vice versa.
State Sen. Jane Cunningham, who sponsored the proposal, said many educators who have spoken against the new rules misunderstand them. The legislation had backing from education lobbyists and organized teacher groups and enjoyed unanimous support from lawmakers.
“Any teacher who is really working hard with a student privately would want to have a parent or administrator know how hard they’re working,” said Cunningham, a Republican from suburban St. Louis. “The only problem is if there’s something they want to hide.”
Despite its earlier support for the measure, the Missouri State Teachers Association now says it plans to seek changes when legislators return to the Capitol in January.
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“The problem is the bill is so vague,” said Todd Fuller, a spokesman for the statewide teachers’ group. “There is a lot of interpretation left up to a local school district.”
Many school districts already have such policies in place, and individual teachers have their own internal guidelines, Fuller added.
Nate Smith, a debate coach and history teacher at Lee’s Summit High School near Kansas City, said he already declines students’ Facebook friend requests to maintain personal and professional distance. He worries that some overzealous districts will go even further than the limits spelled out in the new law.
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