Missouri Teachers Protest Facebook Limitations

On August 28 a new law will come into effect that might put the kaboosh on any exclusive or private social media site conversations between students and their teachers in Missouri, and the latter aren’t exactly thrilled about it.

The Amy Hestir Student Protection Act, named after a womanwho claims she was sexually abused at age 12 by an educator who befriended her, requires individual school districts to draft their own policies regarding whether teachers and students may communicate via social networks, by the first of the year.

The Act was proposed after an Associated Press investigation unearthed information that placed teachers in the Missouri school system under total public scrutiny. It was discovered that 87 Missouri teachers lost their licenses over a four year period from 2001 to 2005 due to sexual wrongdoing that included inappropriate online message exchanges.

As teachers head into this fast approaching school year not everyone is jumping for joy over the impending law.

Missouri Senator Jane Cunningham, who authored the legislation, campaigned for the passage of the act because she wanted the children in her state to be protected from sexual predators in their schools and to ward off any private relationships that can lead to improprieties.

She believes that any Facebook or other social networking site exchanges between current or former students, who are still minors, and their teachers, should be public and viewable by parents and school officials.

Missouri educators worry the law will severly impact the communication they share on every level with their students be it classroom, personal or emergency. Many of the state’s teachers feel that the most preferred modes of communication for young people involve texting or using sites like Facebook and placing limits on their usage could have negative consequences, such as severing the ways in which they could offer any much needed assistance.

Still, there are those who vehemently argue that Facebook and the like, are utilized by them for nothing other than legitimate reasons such as educational concerns, or to counsel reticent students on personal issues, that they would otherwise not share in a public setting.

Readers, do you think communication between educators and students should be policed?