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As a followup to our last blog post, we’d like to share some more guidance to keep in mind as you are updating and refining your school’s policy related to Facebook (and other social networking sites). We hope this is helpful for you. Please remember, though, that you must do a lot more than policy enhancements to be in compliance with the FCC’s new mandates, and to make a meaningful difference in protecting students and avoiding liability issues. Thanks again to Mike Donlin for his excellent summary on these matters!

Preliminary Guidance on the use of Facebook, MySpace and other Social Networking Sites in Schools

- Recognizing the value of social networking in 21st century education,

- Recognizing that social networking is specifically mentioned in Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act and FCC guidance,

- Recognizing that the FCC guidance states specifically that filtering of Facebook, My Space and other social networking sites is not necessarily required, and finally,

- Recognizing that there are potential safety, security and liability issues, the following is preliminary guidance for educators on the use of social networking sites in schools:

1. Check and follow your most current district / school policies and procedures on the use of social networking tools in schools. The policy you may be called by some variation of your district’s Internet Use, Network Use, Internet Access, or Network Access policy. You will also want to check your district’s Internet or network use/access agreement for students and staff.

2. Keep personal and professional/educational accounts separate.

a. There might be different, separate accounts through the same service, however.

b. Do not use social networking sites which do not come through your district network.

3. Never friend a student on a personal site.

4. Do not share personal information on your professional/educational site.

5. Remember: using a social networking site for educational purposes has the potential for extending your school day beyond the school day and the school walls.

- It also has the potential of exposing students to your own or to others’ personal information, even inadvertently.

6. All rules which apply to your bricks-and-mortar classroom and school apply to the online, social networking environment: bullying, harassment, courtesy, appropriate language, timeliness, etc.

7. Inform and involve school administration

8. Inform and involve parents/guardians as appropriate. However, this also may be problematic:

a. Inviting parents to join/participate would be tantamount to inviting parents to be involved in your classroom every day.

b. The parents would have to know that they should not join using their ‘personal’ sites.

c. Remember: there are students from broken, blended or other non-standard families, as well as some with no-contact orders. The teachers would have to be able to negotiate through all that in some, not too demanding way.

d. This might involve a small number of students, but potential risk and liability issues arise.

9. Do not friend other adults on your educational site.

a. Allow for the possibility of inviting “special guests” for specific educational purposes.

b. For such a professional guest profile-type, establish a vetting process, done by the educator using some sort of rubric.

c. Establish what the expert guest would need to agree to be involved.

d. Consider the involvement of teaching team members, student teachers, specialists, counselors and/or administrators

10. Read, become familiar with all site-related Terms of Use documentation.

Our colleague Mike Donlin and I have been talking out some issues related to public education and teen technology use. He has recently pointed out that there are certain points that the FCC would like schools to know as it relates to their intersection with and use of social networking sites. Specifically, schools need to be very familiar with the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, and that it:

1. Adds statutory language to existing FCC rules for implementing the Children’s Internet Protection Act

2. Has an impact on eRate compliance

3. Requires that school districts’ board policies provide for the education of minors regarding appropriate online behavior including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms, and regarding cyberbullying awareness and response

4. This requirement is in addition to existing Children’s Internet Protection Act requirements (requiring blocks/filters, and education of staff, students, parents, etc.)

Also, in addition to policy language, it is important to note that the FCC also specifically mentions Facebook and MySpace, as well as addressing other social networking sites. The FCC finds that:

1. Individual pages on Facebook or MySpace might be potentially harmful to minors, but

2. these sites are not “harmful to minors”, per se, and

3. do not fall into a category of websites which must be blocked.

4. Further noting recent work by the Department of Education, the FCC and the DOE suggest that “social networking websites have the potential to support student learning…” (FCC 11-125 Report and Order, p.8)

So, what are the implications of all of this?

1. By July 1, 2012, School Boards will have to create or update current Internet Use policies to include wording that they are teaching Internet safety

2. Districts will have to decide how, who and with what they will implement this new requirement

3. With the comments on Facebook and other social networking sites, and with the inclusion of social networking within required Board policy language, education and training around both appropriate and pedagogical uses of social networking resources will be critical

4. Districts and schools will need background and training on issues, materials, approaches, resources

5. Cyberbullying awareness and response will need to be included within ongoing harassment, intimidation and bullying training and program implementation

6. As the education of minors about appropriate online behavior, digital citizenship, cyberbullying, etc., covers a wide range of issues and topics, it will be very important for prevention-intervention, school safety, counseling, educational technology and content specialists to work closely to create as effective and all-encompassing digital safety education program as possible

So, the major question are as follows: Is your district positioned to address all of these requirements? How specifically are you making this happen? What will you use to educate staff and students? What protocols are currently in place as it relates to prevention, investigation, and response? Are they ideal? I know that many states just wrapped up standardized testing, and are just trying to make it through the end of the school year. These matters, though, will have to be addressed before administrators take a break for the summer.

We have just updated one of our most popular resources. You can find our latest bullying law fact sheet here. As you can see, all but 2 states now have bullying laws in place or scheduled to take effect in 2012. Most of these (35) include language about electronic forms of bullying while still relatively few (10) use the term “cyberbullying.” Several states have proposals being discussed for new or updated laws.

Regular readers of this blog know that I am skeptical about the ability of new laws to (by themselves) change behavior. I was talking with a friend last week about cyberbullying and he thought that the solution to the problem was simply to pass strict laws that punish those who bully others. When confronted with an opportunity to bully, the logic goes, a youth will think twice because they will not want to be arrested and punished (fined or even incarcerated). This is a reasonable idea in theory, but the fact is that teens are unlikely to be deterred by the threat of formal punishment. Spend some time reading the deterrence research literature and you will see that formal deterrence just isn’t effective, especially for adolescents. Informal deterrence, however, has shown to be useful. That is, youth are reluctant to get involved in behavior that they feel their parents or good friends would disapprove of. They don’t want to be “punished” by those they care about. Plus, it is a lot more likely that friends or family members will find out about their inappropriate behaviors than the formal justice system. So the bottom line is that educators, parents, and others who work with teens need to consistently condemn all forms of harassment so that youth will pick up the message that bullying is just plain wrong.

All of this is not to say that I do not see value in bullying laws, assuming they are reasonable and implementable. As I have discussed often on this blog, laws should be prescriptive by telling school officials and others (parents, law enforcement, etc.) what they can and should be doing to prevent and respond to bullying. But they should also provide resources so that these mandates can be carried out effectively. (see my analysis of New Jersey’s recently-enacted law for more discussion of this). Passing a law that merely prohibits bullying, or that requires schools to have a policy prohibiting bullying, does little to stop the behaviors if resources (money, professional development, and technical assistance) are not also made available. This is especially true for school officials who are genuinely interested in curtailing the harassment that is impacting their students and school.

Back to the new fact sheet. We also added an additional column to our summary table on the first page which specifies whether the state statutes explicitly allow for the discipline of students for their bullying behaviors that occur off of school property or outside of a school sponsored event. We know that most cyberbullying does occur away from school, and as a result some educators have been reluctant to get involved. A few states have included language in their new statutes which clarifies the school’s responsibility and role when it comes to off-campus incidents (see especially, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and New Jersey for good examples).

It needs to be pointed out, however, that even without this language in the new laws, current case law certainly does allow schools to reasonably and appropriately discipline students for their off-campus behaviors (such as cyberbullying), if the behaviors result or have a likelihood of resulting in a substantial disruption of the learning environment at school. This is the exact language used in many of the new laws because this is the standard that was established in the landmark Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines back in 1969. Subsequent Supreme Court and other federal court decisions have applied this standard to a variety of situations, including the online behaviors of students. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently reviewed two cases where students used web sites to denigrate their principals. Even though the court ultimately sided with the students in both cases—saying that their respective schools went too far in disciplining them—the opinion clearly defended the substantial disruption standard that has long governed the actions of educators when confronting problematic student behavior that occurs away from school. Judge Jordon noted in a concurring opinion that: “The issue is whether the Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker, can be applicable to off-campus speech. I believe it can, and no ruling coming out today is to the contrary.” You can read my full analysis of this decision here.

In summary, take the time to review your state’s bullying law and make sure it is useful to you whether you are an educator, parent, or other concerned citizen. Don’t wait until something bad happens to get educated. Upon reviewing your state’s law you may find that it is insufficient or unclear and now is the time to lobby (and educate) your elected officials. Also take the time to review your school policy concerning bullying and harassment. Is it consistent with the law and does it provide you with the tools you need to effectively prevent and respond to bullying? Does it explicitly cover cyberbullying or other forms of bullying that occur away from school? What does it say about those behaviors that occur away from school?

We will continue to update this fact sheet regularly as new laws are proposed and passed so feel free to bookmark the link (http://www.cyberbullying.us/Bullying_and_Cyberbullying_Laws.pdf) so that you always have the most recent version. And if you are aware of any new proposals or laws in your state that are not included in our fact sheet, please let us know.

As we begin the new school year and reaquaint ourselves with some of the negatives implications that student-owned electronic devices at school may have, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about teachers and administrators confiscating cell phones due to school policy violations. Many of us know from experience that it may be more of a headache than it is worth because students can be crafty and even defiant at times.  Let’s say that your school policy prohibits their display or use, and you see a 9th grader texting under his desk during Geometry.  You then stop what you are doing, go up to him, and ask him to give you his phone.  He could then do any of the following:

1.  Tell you he didn’t know about the policy.

2.  Straight up refuse to give you his phone.

3.  Tell you that he can’t give you his phone because his parents paid a lot of money for it, and will beat him if he gets it confiscated.  (By the way, what do you do with that?)

4.  Discreetly switch out the phone he actually uses with an older phone he keeps in his pocket or backpack or desk – and give you that one.  You wouldn’t know the difference.

5.  Give you the phone but keep the battery.  This of course keeps you from searching its contents should you have suspicion of another policy violation (apart from just cell phone display or use) or suspicion of a crime committed, with evidence reasonably believed to exist on the phone.

6.  Give you the phone but keep the SIM card.  (Justin and I have heard stories where the student has actually swallowed the SIM card to keep it from being confiscated).

7.  Give you the phone but not tell you the lock code or password on it.  This keeps you from searching the contents as described above.

8. Tell you to take it from them, which could lead to a tug-of-war over the device and physical contact and conflict that we want to avoid at all costs with a student.

Are there any other outcomes that have happened to you when you’ve tried to confiscate?

To note, we’ve written extensively on when you can and cannot SEARCH the contents of phones (see here and the Related Posts, as well as Chapter 9 of our new book.  In this blog, I wanted to focus in on confiscation complications.  Let us know your thoughts and experiences!

Many educators have struggled to confront the challenges associated with high-tech devices in the classrooms (especially cell phones).  Cyberbullying.  Cheating.  Distractions.  Inappropriate digital material. There is no shortage of possible issues. The seemingly easy way to respond to these concerns has been to ban all personal electronic devices from the classroom (or the entire school).  I have heard about penalties that include students being fined or surrendering the device until the end of the day or even until the end of the school year!  This is just crazy.  First of all, short of strip-searching students as they enter the school, it is practically impossible to enforce a complete ban on technology in the school.  Most administrators have largely conceded this point and therefore enacted policies which say something to the effect of: “If I see it, you lose it.”  A colleague of ours recently quipped that schools approach cell phones the same way they do underwear: “We know you have them, we just don’t want to see them in class.”  It is really unfortunate that these powerful devices have been excluded from learning environments where they could actually be put to positive uses.

Recently, however, it seems that increasing numbers of schools are looking to loosen their overly restrictive cell phone policies. We have received a number of queries over the last couple of months from districts that would like to allow students to bring their own devices, to be used for educational purposes.  It is easy to see how cell phones, iPads, or laptops could augment curriculum delivery in the classroom: flash-polling; looking up multi-media definitions of difficult concepts; pulling up a map of a far-off place; viewing a video of an endangered species…. The possibilities are literally endless.  And we also know that the vast majority of teens already have, and regularly use, these devices (e.g., 75% of 12 to 17 year-olds have their own cell phones, according to Pew).  So there is enormous upside here.

But we do need to recognize the potential problems that may accompany the positives when students “bring their own devices” to school.  It is important to stress, though, that the problem isn’t cell phones or other particular devices.  The problem is how these devices are being (mis)used by some.  Most schools already have a bullying/harassment policy.  These documents should be reviewed to make sure they explicitly cover cyberbullying.  Students, staff, parents, and others need to understand that inappropriate behaviors will not be tolerated and are subject to discipline.  And be specific—talk about harassment and cheating and disrupting the class environment by texting or Facebooking, etc.  Clearly outline the consequences for such behaviors.  Get students and parents in on this discussion.  Schools will have problems as the school community gets used to these changes, but hopefully the problems will be few and far between and will get better with time.  Students will learn appropriate behaviors and it should – in time – become the norm if done right.  For example, ten years ago cell phones were much more of a problem in my college classrooms than they are now.  University students, at least in my experience, have gotten better at cell phone etiquette and are not letting the devices distract the learning that is occurring.  Sure, occasionally a phone will go off in class, but usually the student is apologetic and immediately realizes the faux pas.  Of course middle and high school students are different than those in a univesrity, but I am optimistic that we can work through the same challenges at the secondary school level.

There should also be some discussion in school policy that administrators can conduct a reasonable “search” of the contents of these devices when there is “reasonable suspicion” that evidence of a violation of school policy is on the device.  Schools can’t search these devices whenever they feel like it, but if the search is reasonable and supported by a justifiable need, it could be allowed.  There is some debate about this, so be sure to run it by your legal counsel (you can read more about this here.  We also discuss it in great detail in our new book.) Either way, the circumstances under which school officials can search student-owned devices need to be made explicit.  This will definitely come up, so make sure you are ready.  And again, students, parents, and others need to know the standards.  If you are an educator in a school that recently opened up to electronic devices, please let us know how it is going (the good and the bad!).  If you are a student, we would appreciate hearing your experiences as well.