New rules regarding communication between students and faculty are eliciting mixed reactions from students and educators alike. The subsection outlining these rules, commonly referred to as the Facebook law, is part of a much larger bill titled Senate Bill 54 which is focused on making school safer for students.

The Facebook law states that school employees are not allowed to have any sort of exclusive communication with students through social networking sites and that there should be “appropriate use of electronic media such as text messaging and Internet sites.”

“The writing of the bill was prompted by a study released by the Associated Press”, said Senator Jane Cunningham, writer of the bill. The study she referred to revealed that from 2001-2005, 2,570 educators had their teaching credentials revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned following accusations of sexual misconduct. In at least 1,801 of the cases, young people were the victims.

However, following an onslaught of public scrutiny both statewide and nationally, the Facebook law was repealed and rewritten.

The revised version gives exceptions for instances in which teachers may email or message students. Additionally, communication is allowed provided the teacher has received prior consent from parents or guardians of the students.

This is a vast improvement from the original bill, which forbade any sort of private communication between students and educators – even if the teacher was the student’s parent.

Many have made the argument that the vast majority of teachers use social networking sites such as Facebook for purely educational reasons. “They’re squashing 99.9% of what’s being used as productive and appropriate to stop the super, super small number of people who are making really poor choices,” said Robert Laux, a CHS physics teacher.

It has also been pointed out that the law is a violation of educators’ First Amendment rights to free speech. “The government has no business telling any citizen with whom they can communicate with or the means that they choose to communicate with,” said Charles Collis, a CHS science teacher. Collis has also been interviewed by CBS on the topic.

He also aided in the passing of a preliminary injunction against the original law by Jon E. Beetem, a Cole County judge. The injunction, which went into effect on Aug. 28, will prevent the bill from passing for another 180 days.

In the injunction, Judge Beetem wrote that the bill was an imposition on the teacher’s First Amendment rights to free speech and that “social networking is extensively used by educators. It is often the primary, if not sole manner, of communications between [teachers] and their students.”

The Facebook law says that school districts must create their own policy regarding student and teacher communication that is no less strict than the rules that have been outlined in the bill.

“[The] Clayton School District does not yet know what they are going to make their policy,” said Chris Tennill, Chief Communications Officer for the Clayton School District.  “They are waiting to see if they get a final message from the legislature.”

This was before the revised version of the bill was created, however. If this revised version passes in both the Senate and the House, the school district will begin crafting the policy.

So far, the main problem with the revised version is a section which states that there must be “proper communication, including appropriate use of electronic media such as text messaging, emailing, social networking, and Internet use for both instructional and personal purposes.”

“[I am] not sure how districts are supposed to police and enforce employees’ personal use of electronic media,” Tennill said.

Clearly, this subsection of Senate Bill 54 has a long way to go before it gains public approval.

“The overall intent of the bill and what it does for students and teachers and school districts are all very good things,” said Tennill. “But this is just kind of a misguided piece in there, they tried a little bit too hard.”