When the tornado devastated the town of Joplin Missouri, teachers turned to Facebook to help locate students. A new measure could make that a bit more complicated.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon recently signed a bill into law that would ban exclusive contact on social networking sites between teachers and students. Senate Bill 54 passed with unanimous support.
A small part of the wide-ranging SB54, makes it illegal for teachers to be "friends" with students on any social networking site that allows private communication.
That means teachers and students can't be friends on Facebook or can't follow each other on Twitter for example.
It was meant to prevent teachers from developing inappropriate relationships with their students. But to use Facebook parlance, not everyone is clicking the like button.
NPR's All Things Considered's Michele Norris spoke to an eighth grade teacher from Joplin, Mo., who opposes the new law. Randy Turner, who teaches English, said as teachers your job is to reach out to students and that means going where they are and now a days students have shunned e-mail and are using social networking sites to communicate.
But Turner argues instead of protecting children, this new law may be hurting them. "We may be preventing them from talking to the very people who may be able to help," he said.
Missouri Outlaws Student-Teacher Facebook Friendship by barkingrobotvia www.npr.org
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