[ka-chow]

So, the other FB thread got me thinking about what you guys thought about the rule started last year in our school district.

Teachers or basically anyone working in the school with the kids (paras, subs, teach assists etc) can not have ANY students OR their parents on their facebook friends list. The ONLY exception is if you were friends before your child was in the school, and then they may ask for proof.

This is with risk of termination of their job.

I personally was upset because I had a couple teachers at my kids school I became friends with in the last few years, and they had to remove me from their list.

They also have to keep everything private, and unsearchable. I guess I understand that, but now since I'm not on their friend list I cant see ANYTHING.

[mayandsofiasmommy]

I do not think that shuld be a district policy or a condition of employment.

However, I would not friend any parents or current students. I did friend 1 former student who graduated this year. SO glad I did b/c she was valedictorian and I even got a copy of her speech to help the 8th graders think about their promotion speech!

[BeccaCCKK]

I dont think it should be grounds for termination. I dont think that teachers and students should be friends though. That just leaves too much up in the air for accusations to be made about what is going on in private messages.

[K.A.T]

Grounds for termination is going far if you ask me. But I do agree that I don't like the idea of students and teachers being FB friends. I have a former college teacher on my friends list, but I added her AFTER I graduated. I would be leery if one of my kids (when they're older) and their teacher were FB friends.

[Chloe'sMommy]

I personally don't think teachers should befriend current students, but it shouldn't be automatic grounds for termination unless there was proof something was going on (like inappropriate messaging back and forth). Now that I'm out of high school I have several teachers on my FB. I still think it's weird to call them by their first names!

I was friends with my teachers in high school. I mean, they were still teachers, but if Facebook had been prevalent in those years, we might have been FB friends. Maybe it's silly, but I think that teachers are allowed to be more to students than just teachers. They're supposed to be role models and trusted adults. That can happen without friendship, but if I'm close enough to someone (who isn't that much older than me - most of my teachers were under 10 years older than me) that I feel I can trust them with personal problems or whatever, then I'm probably going to consider them a friend. I've been out of high school for seven years, and I still talk to some of these teachers pretty regularly (via facebook, of course). So I guess I don't really see the big deal of teachers being friends with their students. As long as their facebook page isn't inappropriate, I wouldn't object to my high school student FB friending special teachers.

Facebook is a social networking site, but I don't see why it can't also be a useful tool in the parent teacher relationship. Say your son is struggling in his English class. You're going back and forth with phone calls to his English teacher, but you can't call her from your job during the day, and she's working a second job at night. Rather than play phone tag for eternity trying to work this out, it would be rather simple to Facebook them a message from your office that they could check and respond to at their convenience. I suppose that voice mail accomplishes almost the same thing, but I don't see the problem with using Facebook to do it either.

I suppose this is my incredibly long winded way of saying I think this policy is kind of ridiculous.

[RTMOM]

That is a little severe as a rule...but personally, I wouldn't want to be friends with a teacher when I was a teen. And I wouldn't want to be friends with a teacher of my child (unless I knew them already)


Some things about your homelife and social life need to be separate from that...

^^ Why? When a kid spends most of their time at school or doing school related activities, why must they segregate that part of their life from everything else? Personally, I spent at least 3 hours a day with two of my high school teachers via extra curricular activities. Not to mention the occasions where that activity took us out of town, whether to neighboring cities or weekend long competitions. I spent nearly as much time with them as I did with my same-age friends, and more than I spent with my family (while technically I was in the same location as my mother, I was one of those teenagers who locked herself in the bedroom and never came out).

Even though I considered these people friends, there was still a certain level of respect and authority that they commanded. We respected them as teachers, and they didn't treat us quite as equals, but it wasn't so far off. As a compromise between teacher and friend, we actually dropped the "mr" and "mrs" from their names, and just refered to them as Jenkins, Showers, Hensel, etc.

[Chloe'sMommy]

While IN school there was only one teacher I would have befriended on FB...our really hot chemistry teacher. I wonder what he's been up to these past few years...

[RTMOM]

Originally Posted by Keskes

^^ Why? When a kid spends most of their time at school or doing school related activities, why must they segregate that part of their life from everything else? Personally, I spent at least 3 hours a day with two of my high school teachers via extra curricular activities. Not to mention the occasions where that activity took us out of town, whether to neighboring cities or weekend long competitions. I spent nearly as much time with them as I did with my same-age friends, and more than I spent with my family (while technically I was in the same location as my mother, I was one of those teenagers who locked herself in the bedroom and never came out).

Even though I considered these people friends, there was still a certain level of respect and authority that they commanded. We respected them as teachers, and they didn't treat us quite as equals, but it wasn't so far off. As a compromise between teacher and friend, we actually dropped the "mr" and "mrs" from their names, and just refered to them as Jenkins, Showers, Hensel, etc.

Since the teachers do not need to know everything about their students lives. You know how kids are on FB, they tend to post anything and everything on their status....



Being friends on FB is just going a little too much into the student/teacher relationship.

[ka-chow]

How about PARENTS of the kids though? I can see how it might be a bit odd (though not wrong) it may seem for kids to be FB friends with their teachers, but how about like in my case where my kids are in elementary school and I'm close with many of the teachers BECAUSE I spend so much time at school volunteering. I had 4 different teachers as FB friends and now that is not allowed because my kids go to that school.

[Hippy Witchy Chicky]

My SIL (whom I can't stand, just thought I'd add that in there ) is an elementary teacher. She has students on her FB and she would post about going out partying and say thing about her classroom.

She even posted that one little boy needed to be slapped in the mouth and promptly deleted everyone's responses and deleted them as a friend if they said anything back to it.

[TheMrs]

As a teacher, I think think termination is a bit much, but I agree it is a bad idea to make students friends. Its just asking for trouble. I do know many teachers that have befriended graduated students, I don't see much of a problem in that since they are no longer students and adults. As for parents, I think that is a bit stickier. I work in a small district where people become close and where many teachers grew up and truly are friends with their students parents. It would be tough not to make exceptions for those parents/friends.

Personally, I have a few parents on my friends list, but the only people I have under 18 on my friends list are related to me.

[hannah79]

As a high school teacher, I do not find it appropriate for students and teachers to '"friend" each other on a social networking site. I don't have a problem with parents friending kids though. My kid's will often comment in class, "I thought you were my friend". I always respond to them that I am not. I let them know that I absolutely care about their well being and them in general, I am not their friend. First and foremost, I am their teacher.

Please forgive all typos. I just celebrated the end of the first week of school with a pedi and a super giant margarita.

[Mom2Froggy]

I can't imagine NOT being friends with a few of my teachers growing up. I still talk to a few teachers, but even when I was in school we were close "friends." We all weren't on social sites back then, but now those same teachers do have past and present students on their facebook sites.

My teacher that my own mother hired in middle school was a huge, huge influence in my life. She met with me before and after school if needed, we wrote notes to each other in our weekly journal (but this same relationship was extended to ALL students, not just me). To be able to be "friends" with a teacher and be so close was important to me, and to my parents too. When I finally had enough of my peers, I was at my breaking point. That teacher saw how bad off I was in my journal, and while I never threatened suicide, she told my parents that she thought I needed to leave the school AND town because she feared I would kill myself if I stayed in that setting. My Mom took me out of school a couple weeks later and it was my saving grace. I remained in touch with her for years. To be able to open up in that journal to her and know she was a "friend" to me was so important. To hang out with her and have occasional dinners as family was important to me and the other people she did that with.

I had another teacher in high school that I am also friends with on facebook now. She is friends with many of her students on there. She sees her students at local poetry slams and encourages them to participate. She was another major positive influence in my life, and not being such close friends during school wouldn't have made me actually give a **** about school. She is a very open teacher and I one day made an excuse about why I was failing, and she said "No Jenn, you are **** lazy and you know it, we both know you are smart, so quit making excuses for yourself." And she was right. But coming from any other teacher would have made me feel like crap, even if it was true. Coming from her, it worked. She would ask me and others about our lives and would remember our birthdays and other details about us. We even hung out after every single play when all cast members got together at Hooters (it was a school tradition to go there). She never went past any boundaries with us but she truly was a friend.

I hope to be friends to my students when I teach, but I do understand a personal boundary has to be set. My boyfriend is a club DJ and I post about our outings on facebook... that is something that kids dont need to see so personally I wouldn't be adding kids because of that. But making a page to keep in touch with past students or keeping a class site (that kids arent required to be a part of) isn't something I'd immediately brush off. I want to be their teacher and be an adult, but I do want to be their friends too.