New school Facebook rule too broad, goes too far

In other words, we don’t control technology, it controls us. We rode buggies until there were cars. We took trains until there were airplanes. We listened to radio before there was television.

Perhaps we should ponder this as we look at the recent decision by the Barrow County School System and its attempt to end-run online digital technology by adopting a policy that says teachers should not allow either students or parents to interact with them via digital networks and that the only communication between teachers and students or parents should be through school system approved networks.

Like a lot of school systems across the country, the BCSS is trying to protect itself from liability when teachers misuse Facebook, email, Twitter, texting and other digital media to lure a student into an inappropriate relationship. And like many school systems, the BCSS seeks to ban digital contact between teachers and students outside of school-approved avenues.

But the BCSS is taking that idea a huge step further by also seeking to ban digital communication between adults — parents and teachers — except for communications approved and controlled by the school system. The BCSS policy even has suggested language for teachers to use to de-friend parents from Facebook.

Are they kidding?

The idea behind this may at first glance look good on paper; that is, teachers should maintain a professional relationship between themselves and students and not blur that with personal information.

But it’s not that simple. The black-and-white decree by the BCSS does not take into account a number of real world situations that are common in a small community.

Here are a few examples:

• Would a teacher be in violation of the BCSS rule if they have their own children, nieces, nephews or other family members as Facebook friends who are also students in the school system?

• Would a teacher be in violation of the rule if they are Facebook “friends” with another adult in the community if that adult has a child in the school system?

• A teacher has a teen daughter who is on Facebook and the teacher herself is her daughter’s “friend” so she can monitor the daughter’s use. But that also indirectly links the parent/teacher to all her daughter’s Facebook friends. Does that open up the teacher to school sanctions?

The BCSS policy doesn’t address these kinds of gray area issues and because of that, the system has opened itself to more problems than it is trying to solve. It won’t be long until teachers who have personal grudges against each other begin flooding school administrators with tattletale reports alleging all kinds of online policy violations by their colleagues, interactions that are innocent, but that will be twisted and misconstrued.

Won’t that be fun for school administrators to police?

And if we take the BCSS policy to its logical conclusion, then why should it be limited to just online digital communication? Why not also ban teachers from talking to students or parents if they see each other in a grocery store, or a restaurant or in any other location outside of school?

Or why not ban the original electronic communication technology, telephones? If a student or a parent calls a teacher at home, does that violate the policy? How is a private email communication or Facebook different from a telephone call?

There’s no doubt that some teachers have misused Facebook and other digital communications to lure students into sexual and other inappropriate relationships. School systems should be alert to that and try to protect students as much as they can from any kind of inappropriate relationship regardless of the source.

But why do school systems always respond to a few problems by bringing out a cannon and shooting grapeshot at everyone? Why not just deal with the problems as they occur rather than creating policies that are too broad and impossible to enforce?

Technology is its own imperative. People will use technology, period. Banning teachers from using digital communications with students or parents is like standing in the ocean and pushing against the tide. It’s Luddite thinking.

In a small town, people — teachers, parents, students —go to church together, attend sporting and social events together and interact via networks — both digital and personal —that have nothing to do with schools.

It’s fine to say teachers should keep their personal and professional lives apart, but school systems cannot dictate the compartmentalization of relationships into neat little color-coded file folders so popular among educators. Whether it’s via the Internet or through personal contact, many teachers have overlapping relationships with both parents and students in a small community.

The BCSS no doubt means well with its new “Facebook rules.” But simply making rules won’t stop child predators. And trying to regulate how parents and teachers — both adults — interact crosses a line. Who does the BCSS think it is to attempt to regulate how adults communicate?

Some of this rule-heavy twaddle might be forgivable if school systems weren’t such hypocrites when it comes to their own interpersonal relationships within a school. If school systems are so concerned about “professional” relationships, then why do they hire such a multitude of family members to work in the same system? Even if family members don’t report directly to each other, doesn’t having multiple family members working in the system make it difficult to administer with a degree of “professional” distance?

Of course it does. So for any school system to attempt to dictate how adults — parents and teachers — interact with each other on social networks is foolish. School systems need to address their own internal nepotism issues before they dictate to adults how they should or should not communicate.

The new BCSS Facebook policy is too broad and too intrusive. Any school Facebook policy should limit its focus to only teacher-student interactions; and even then, it should allow for real life situations where students have adult family members and adult friends who happen to work in the school system.

And once again, the Barrow County Board of Education sits by in silence while the school system’s policy police run amuck.

So here’s a question for board members to ask: Do BOE members also have to drop all their adult Facebook friends in the community just as they’re telling teachers to do?

Are BOE members allowed to answer emails from parent-constituents, or will they be required to get permission from Big Brother first?

Mike Buffington is co-publisher of the Barrow Journal. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.