Online policy revised

Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools employees who have Facebook or MySpace accounts will soon have to think carefully about what they say and do online when it comes to students.

Officials with the school system are reviewing the system's policy on employees communicating with students through social-networking Web sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

The new policy, which will be presented to the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education on Tuesday, strongly recommends that school-system employees not communicate with students through such sites.

The policy also strongly recommends that employees not list students as "friends" on their personal pages unless the student is a relative and warns that any communication between employees and students should be appropriate.

The school board could vote on the policy during its meeting Tuesday.

School officials decided to review the policy last month as part of a review of all their policies, especially those dealing with technology. The system's professional-conduct policy did not include guidelines for social-networking sites.

Initially, school officials came up with a policy that would have prohibited all communication between students and staff on any social-networking sites. That policy would also have barred teachers, administrators and other school employees from listing Winston-Salem/Forsyth County students as "friends," unless the student was related to the employee.

But after getting feedback from teachers and the community, school-system officials decided to come up with a less strict policy, Superintendent Don Martin said.

"It's softer than what we first started out with simply because of having so many exceptions outside of school control," Martin said. "It's better to have the policy and explain there will be consequences for any inappropriate communication.

"It advises teachers that the potential for abuse and misuse is certainly there."

Tripp Jeffers, the president of the Forsyth County Association of Educators, said that several teachers contacted him about the initial policy. The teachers told him that they use social-networking sites to communicate with youths in their church.

One teacher said that a social-networking site had been a place where students sent messages to a teacher after the death of a student, Jeffers said.

"The issue really is two-pronged," Jeffers said. "First of all we are dedicated most to keeping kids safe and so we have to have policies in place and we have to have training in place in order to help keep kids safe, but the other prong is to facilitate appropriate communication between educators and those that we're trying to educate.

"That's where we're trying to strike a balance," he said. "The types of things that we're seeing in the news clearly point out that some people put themselves in precarious situations where they're making comments that are inappropriate and we don't want to see that happen."

Jeannie Metcalf, a school-board member, said that a policy that warns school-system employees of the risk involved with using social-networking sites is better than a complete ban.

"I use Facebook with my kids all the time," Metcalf said. "I think that it's one of those things that we are still exploring its uses.

"I don't mind not totally banning it. It is letting teachers know that there are dangers inherent with teachers using social networking and if they choose to participate that they make sure they maintain their professionalism."

If teachers, school administrators or other school employees do not follow the standards set in the professional conduct policy -- including any new standards for behavior on social-networking sites that are approved by the school board -- they are subject to investigation and disciplinary action, including the suspension or revocation of their teaching license, according to the current policy.

The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools began reviewing its policy before several teachers were disciplined for inappropriate online postings in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

An elementary-school teacher in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system was suspended last week and recommended for firing after she posted on her Facebook page that she was teaching "in the ghetto of Charlotte." Four other teachers are facing penalties for pages that showed "poor judgment and bad taste."

■ Lisa Boone-Wood can be reached at 727-7232 or at lboone-wood@wsjournal.com.

■ The Associated Press contributed to this story.