Teacher suspended for facebook slam against student

[srmom]

Originally Posted by Ooh La La

My friend's mom is a teacher and she refuses to live in the district where she teaches so she won't run into students or parents of students. Then again, she also doesn't have a facebook.

Where I live, all the teachers live in the district. They are all neighbors and friends with the parents. It can be tricky, but we seem to manage.

We also don't post private thoughts on a public forum. But, since it seems that it is kind of Peyton Placey, all the gossip gets out anyway, no need for facebook.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by srmom

Where I live, all the teachers live in the district. They are all neighbors and friends with the parents. It can be tricky, but we seem to manage.

We also don't post private thoughts on a public forum. But, since it seems that it is kind of Peyton Placey, all the gossip gets out anyway, no need for facebook.

This is so funny, but so often true. Of course, in my community not all the gossip is grounded in reality, but when is it ever?

I think it's dumb for anyone to do a whole lot of specific work related complaining on facebook if you have even one facebook friend tied to your workplace or if you have your settings public enough that anyone at work could read it.

If the teacher didn't name the kid and was just venting in code to people who for the most part wouldn't have known who the kid was about her offensive Christmas gifts and gave the context of why she got the gift, I think it was kind of stupid but not something worth serious professional repercussions.

If the teacher in question was actually trying to get the school to treat the event like a "hate crime" or to get the school to treat it officially like a discipline issue, then talking about it on facebook takes it to a different level in my opinion because you are chatting with your friends about something that the school is going to expect you to handle very professionally.

Teachers have private lives and should be given the same social leeway to complain about work that other people are, in my opinion. But just as you wouldn't expect your doctor to vent about how disgusting your medical procedure was or your lawyer to talk about the specifics of the causes of your divorce, mentioning you by name or identifiable characteristics to people who know you, teachers probably shouldn't complain about specific kids to people who know the kids.

I think most states have clear cut professional standards about information learned in the context of your professional role as a teacher and the students' and parents' expectation of confidentiality. But I don't know that a public class discussion and a Christmas gift left on a desk in plain view are things that fall under an expectation of confidentiality. You're kind of an idiot to complain on facebook about the gifts you got and how offended you are, but I'm not sure that it's a breach of professional standards. I guess we'll see.