1st amendment rights & teachers

[Educatingblue]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Unless your administration has said otherwise, what is the issue here? My wife's a teacher and her kids IM her, contact her on Myspace/Facebook, etc. I actually think that this sort of out-of-school communication is better than oral communication because there's automatically a record of everything which was said.

I agree that this is a great way to stay connected to the students on "their" level, but with all of the inappropriate teacher/student situations in the news lately, I am very cautious with how I deal with my students. It only takes one time for "John" to get mad about something in class and tell his parents his teacher has been socializing with him outside of school etc.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Educatingblue

I agree that this is a great way to stay connected to the students on "their" level, but with all of the inappropriate teacher/student situations in the news lately, I am very cautious with how I deal with my students. It only takes one time for "John" to get mad about something in class and tell his parents his teacher has been socializing with him outside of school etc.

That'd be fine. You could then turn over to your administrator all of the logs which would show nothing even remotely inappropriate.

I should probably add that my wife doesn't teach at an ordinary public school, it's a college-prep charter school. The students and faculty interact a lot more outside of class as compared to anything I've seen at any other school.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by Kevin

That'd be fine. You could then turn over to your administrator all of the logs which would show nothing even remotely inappropriate.

I should probably add that my wife doesn't teach at an ordinary public school, it's a college-prep charter school. The students and faculty interact a lot more outside of class as compared to anything I've seen at any other school.

And if it's normal interaction for the school, then I suspect it's great. But if it's not typical for the school, you may be setting yourself up for something.

While you might not be fired for mere suspicion of impropriety, it does damage to your professional reputation. What logs do you think would completely clear you?

[ASUADPi]

I never actually sent the email. I am not sure how to address my concerns with the inequities. Myself and the other freshmen coach both have a gut feeling that the booster club paid for varsity's stuff, but yet the parents are being asked the "foot the bill" for the freshmen goodie bags.

But hey, my friend who works for UCA said that we can do a camp for a really cheap price, if I can try to get booster club to pay for half of it, I'll call it "even" on the goodie bags

[33girl]

I agree w/ UGA that the Booster Club is overstepping their bounds and should have come to you as the coach first before they did anything. If they want to do something special for the SENIORS ONLY, that's one thing, but that usually happens at the end of the season, not with goodie bags. (Actually, I think the whole concept of goodie bags is silly in general, given how anal girls can be about what products they use.)

To me, the whole email thing is an absolute nonissue. That's like saying if a client calls our president on our president's personal phone line that what he says doesn't count - which of course is ridiculous.

Oh, and is varsity judged by age or by ability?

[epchick]

If teachers sending emails to students is wrong, then there are a few teachers at the cousin's school who need to be reprimanded.

Some of my cousin's teachers email my aunt to essentially "tattle" on my cousin.

[AKA_Monet]

At the University level, they provide us with a website and a "epost" session, kind of like GC forum format. Students can discuss as needed. They can email me and tell me if they are unable to come to class or turning is some homework exercises.

I think discussing extra-curricular activities is different from academics. On some level I would use one exposure with my work email and a personal email for other issues.

[Lil' Hannah]

We recently had to terminate someone for sending harassing/threatening e-mails to his supervisor repeatedly after being told many times to stop. He was doing it at home in the evenings from his yahoo account and just couldn't wrap his brain around the fact that it wasn't ok to do such things even if it's from your home computer. As others have said, if you're acting on behalf of the school or cheer squad, it doesn't matter which computer you're using, if you act inappropriate, you can be reprimanded.