It’s sad that it has come to this, but I guess it’s a sign of the times.

According to ReadWriteWeb, the Virginia Board of Education will vote this weke on establishing guidelines for teacher contact with students outside of the classroom.  The policy, if adopted, will cover text messaging, social networking and online game contact between teachers and students, and essentially ban all of this.  This is in response to the 120 actions the state has taken against education employees since 2000 for sexual misconduct.

The rules will include:

• Under most circumstances, Teachers and other school board employees must restrict one-on-one electronic communications with individual students to accounts, systems and platforms provided by or accessible to the school division.
• Teachers and other employees may not use personal wireless communications devices to “text” students and are prohibited from interacting one-on-one with students through personal online social-networking sites. Teachers and other school board employees must decline or disregard invitations from students to interact privately through texting and personal social-networking sites.
• If, because of an urgent or emergency circumstance, a teacher or other school board employee uses a personal communications device or account to contact an individual student, the date, time, and nature of the contact must be reported in writing to his or her supervisor on the next school day.
• Teachers and other school board employees may not knowingly engage in online gaming unrelated to instruction with students.
• School board policy on electronic communications with students also applies to teachers and other employees of virtual school programs and other vendors providing instructional services to students.

Apparently some teachers are arguing against it, saying that electronic communication shouldn’t be singled out, and that teachers should conduct themselves professionally at all times.

Well, yes, they should, but the unfortunate truth of the matter is, they don’t.  Electronic communication is being singled out because it is what comes up time and time again in cases such as this, and that is just the sad truth of the matter.

Unfortunately this is where we are in this day and age.  As you have seen me write time and time again about teacher sex scandals, the problem seems to be on the rise, so it’s about time someone took a preemptive strike against these sorts of activities from teachers.  Yes, it is unfortunate that contact between faculty and students has to be treated this way, but it is what it is.

If teachers topped getting involved with their students, than we wouldn’t need these rules, now would we?