In other words, later this month it will be illegal for students and teachers to be friends online, according to KSPR.
Senate Bill 54 is dubbed the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act, which aims to fight inappropriate contact between students and teachers, including protecting children from sexual misconduct by their educators. It is named after a Missouri public school student who was repeatedly molested by a teacher several decades ago. The Bill strengthens rules against schools that fail to report sexual abuse of students by employees, but at the same time it also adds other requirements, such as the social networking component.
The new law bans direct social networking contact between teachers and students in the hopes of setting more distinct boundaries on the relationships between the two. Section 162.069 of the bill explains the social networking part in a bit more detail:
Teachers cannot establish, maintain, or use a work-related website unless it is available to school administrators and the child’s legal custodian, physical custodian, or legal guardian. Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student.
It’s not clear how Missouri plans to enforce the law, but it’s quite possible social networks will be asked to do a little work themselves. Will the state be allowed access to Facebook accounts, personal computers, or ISP records to see who is friending whom?
Personally, I think it’s a little bit ridiculous as I’ve seen multiple student-teacher friendships work out just fine, even before social networks ever existed. Then again, I don’t live in Missouri.
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