William Sandiford, a sophomore at John Burroughs School, has never been friends with a teacher on Facebook. “I think there’s a law about that,” he says.
He’s right—sort of.
The Amy Hestir Student Protection Act, which took effect in Missouri on August 28, included a section that prohibited private communication between teachers and students, including Facebook messages. The section was so vague, however, that the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri filed a class-action lawsuit claiming the law violated First Amendment rights.
“Some of the dads whose sons are at the school could not even text their sons under that law,” explains John Lawrence, instructional technology coordinator and teacher at Chaminade College Preparatory School.
In October, a new Missouri Senate bill effectively repealed that section. Instead, by March 1, each school must enact its own communication policy.
What does that mean for schools throughout St. Louis?
Already, many high-school teachers have stopped accepting friend requests from students. “Five years ago, when I first signed onto Facebook, some of my current students sent me a friend request, and I accepted the invitation,” says a teacher at Incarnate Word Academy, adding that the site could serve as an efficient way to communicate with after-school club members. “Then, later, I felt kind of weird about it; now, I won’t accept a friend request from current students.”
Still, Facebook has other classroom applications. At Chaminade, “our teachers give Facebook assignments,” says Lawrence. “The kids would have to create a Facebook page for, say, a poet or an author of some sort.”
Though the new legislation doesn’t affect universities, St. Louis colleges take a variety of approaches to social media. Kristen DiFate, an assistant professor of communications and journalism at Webster University, uses social media to spur discussion. “Every one of my classes has a class blog where all of the students are required to post, and we have a conversation outside of the classroom,” says DiFate. “So instead of having just three hours a week, we now have maybe six hours a week where the students are engaged with each other.” Beth Huebner, an associate professor at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, also uses a blog while teaching criminal-justice courses, though she says she doesn’t interact socially with students online.
At all schools, the challenge is finding a way to get the benefits of social media in the classroom without crossing social boundaries. “I think we’re going to be in this cycle of dancing in the middle of policies and procedures until those in their early twenties become parents,” says Lawrence. “Then, I think the policies and procedures for social media will loosen up.”
His prediction could be accurate.
“I think that by creating the law, they’re just trying to keep schools professional—they don’t want the kids and teachers to get too involved,” says Sandiford, who turns 16 this month. “But if I had to make that choice, I’d probably make social networking OK.”
