Students and workers in the Chicago school system face new restrictions on how they interact via social media and mobile devices, according to new policies the city’s school board approved last week.
Teachers will be prohibited from using their personal social-media accounts to communicate with students, for example, and will also face new requirements governing their online behavior. Students will also be barred from calling or leaving voice messages on the mobile devices of staff members.
Some exceptions, such as emergency communications and “bulk text” alerts and notifications, apply to the new policies, which were drafted by the district after a sexual-abuse scandal was documented this summer in an investigation by the Chicago Tribune. A district-commissioned report released this month confirmed broad failures that included little-understood guidelines to address appropriate boundaries between students and employees.
