As with any business practice, using social media has its benefits as well as its dangers. Your first line of defense against the unspeakable (insert your numerous employee-related concerns here) is to have an updated social media policy in your employee handbook—and to ensure that everyone has received a copy, AND read it. However, even with clear expectations and guidelines, staff and faculty members can engage in online behavior that can cause concern. Since social media is still a relatively new phenomenon, legal principles and court decisions are still evolving. Here are three recent cases of note.
Is Craigslist Posting Relevant to the Job?
A San Diego Dean of Students was fired after posting an obscene ad (with graphic photos) on Craigslist seeking sexual relations with another adult. An anonymous parent reported the ad to the local police who then notified the district. The Dean was placed on paid administrative leave and served with notice of intent to dismiss for “unfitness for service" and "immoral conduct." In California, public educators may appeal their termination to a three-member commission on professional competence, which ordered his reinstatement—stating that the district failed to establish a relationship between the conduct and his performance as an educator. Playing into this situation is the fact that in California and other states, it is illegal for an employer to take action against an employee for legal, off-duty conduct. Pursuing the case in Superior Court, the district lost again. The court reasoned that while his conduct may have been objectionable, it clearly was not illegal, and thus the school district had no cause for firing him. But, the California Court of Appeals has recently overturned the ruling—reasoning that the dean’s role as an administrator made his off-duty conduct “fair game” with respect to his ability to serve as a role model to students and as a leader of fellow educators.
You can read the full story here.
Is “Friending” a Firing Offense?
Another common social media dilemma comes in a story fresh off of the press in Boston, MA. “Teacher Fired Over ‘Friending,’” made headlines on May 26 on Boston.com.
A long-term substitute teacher was recently fired for “friending” a student on Facebook. The school’s policy concerning appropriate boundaries and ethical behavior is similar to those recommended by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. Among these guidelines are that employees, “conduct themselves in ways that do not distract from the educational process … [by] improper fraternization with students using Facebook and similar Internet sites or social networks, or via cellphone, texting, or telephone … [or] list current students as ‘friends’ on networking sites.” School officials declined to reveal the nature of the allegedly inappropriate communication between the teacher and his students.
You can read the full story here.
Another Facebook Firing
And, just because we like examples in sets of three, yet another tale of social media woes made headlines from the Green Bay (Wisconsin) School District. A story published on May 22 by the greenbaygazette.com highlights another story of a teacher being terminated over Facebook communications with a 17-year old student.
As it turns out, the district doesn’t forbid the use of social media between students and teachers, but does offer two pages of guidelines for staff who use social media as teaching tools and/or for pleasure. While many teachers and coaches favor using Facebook for communicating with students about homework assignments and practice schedules, the district strongly discourages employees from communicating with students via social networking sites, and says if they do so, they should notify parents or make them part of the process. It also encourages teachers to restrict communication to school-related topics. Speaking in general of social media concerns, the policy notes that "the line between private and public activity has been blurred by tools such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube … what you post online, even if it's just to friends or family, can be easily circulated beyond your intended audience. This content, therefore, represents you, your school and the district."
You can read the full story here.
Making Sense of the Social Media Quagmire
What do all these stories have in common? Besides their social media commonality, they all demonstrate instances where employees either weren’t aware of, didn’t understand, or disregarded school policy—leading to firings, lawsuits, and considerable expense and negative publicity for the schools involved. While even the best-written and best-communicated policy can’t always prevent risks and expenses from arising, it is often the school’s best means for warding off these issues as much as possible.
Here are some tips for establishing a clear social media policy in your school.
- Gather your administrative team to draft a policy that is consistent with your mission, culture, and values.
- Involve faculty and staff in reviewing the policy and take their feedback, comments, and concerns into account.
- When the policy is finalized, distribute it to all employees and discuss it thoroughly in all-employee meetings.
- Distribute a student-and-parent-focused policy to all students and parents, and discuss it in appropriate forums.
- Reiterate the policy at employee orientation meetings each fall – and do the same for students and parents.
By doing so, you’ll be ensuring that the policy has as much “buy-in” and awareness from employees, students, and parents. Then keep monitoring the environment for future social media developments that create the need to alter or update the policy.
Learn more about social media benefits and dangers this summer in ISM's Summer Institute course, Facebook, Twitter, and More: Social Media Strategies for School Marketing.
