Indian River devising social networking policy

PHILADELPHIA — Indian River Central School District officials are working on a social networking policy to set boundaries for communication between district employees and students using websites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

"The purpose is to alert everyone that there can be interactions that cross the line from appropriate to inappropriate," Superintendent James Kettrick said. "That can happen more easily with some of these websites."

District officials dealt with a couple of situations last year that were seen by either a parent or administrator as crossing the line with teacher and student interaction. In those cases, a teacher was acting more as a student counselor than as a teacher, Mr. Kettrick said.

"It's not that anyone was doing anything wrong, but it was perceived as too much or what could be beyond a teacher's job description," Mr. Kettrick said. "We want students to feel comfortable coming to teachers with problems or concerns, but some things are more of a counselor's role."

The proposed social networking policy didn't stem directly from those instances, but it's a topic that has been coming up more as social networking websites have become more popular, Mr. Kettrick said.

"This is proposed because of all the new technology out there today," Board of Education Vice President Thomas J. Lapp said. "This gives some direction about when you're crossing the line from being a teacher to a friend."

The district has policies that deal with the appropriateness of employee-student interactions, but district officials saw a need for something specific to social networking and new technology, Mr. Kettrick said.

There will not be specific language in the policy that tells staff members how they can and can't communicate using social networking websites.

"The definition of appropriate is fluid," Mr. Kettrick said. "This will need to be handled case by case."

The policy is still in the draft stage and the Board of Education likely will look at it again before it's put on an agenda for possible adoption.

While he does feel the need to set some boundaries with the policy, Mr. Kettrick said, social networking websites can be a good communication tool.

"The overwhelming majority of the interactions on these websites are positive, and we don't want to curtail that," Mr. Kettrick said. "Coaches could contact athletes about a practice being canceled or parents can be contacted about when a bus will arrive."

In other business at Thursday's meeting, the board:

■ Approved the use of roughly $527,000 in federal stimulus funds to purchase and install a new phone system that will service seven district buildings.

■ Approved an agreement to transfer ownership of Schoolhouse 12, a one-room schoolhouse on Route 11, from the district to the St. Lawrence Power & Equipment Museum, Madrid, and an agreement with the museum to lease the land from the district for one year. It will be moved to the museum in the spring.

■ Approved the state Environmental Quality Review for the schoolhouse and the surrounding land.