4 hours ago, New Colonel said:

Here's a few other scenarios that were brought up to me by high schoolers.

1. This is for volunteers also.  So high school aged volunteers can't text their own friends, who are students?

2.  Many teachers have kids babysit for them or mow lawns or whatever.  They can't contact them directly now?

3.  Those teachers that have summer gigs like managing at a swim club.  They can't contact their employees now directly because they are students?

Correct on all.  The parent of students will have to sign a waiver for that adult to contact them by text or social media.  They could still use the school traceable communication system, though, without a waiver. 

58 minutes ago, brooksville said:

Correct on all.  The parent of students will have to sign a waiver for that adult to contact them by text or social media.  They could still use the school traceable communication system, though, without a waiver. 

Gonna make it pretty hard to contact a student to cover that lifeguard or snack bar shift if someone called in sick.

15 hours ago, New Colonel said:

Gonna make it pretty hard to contact a student to cover that lifeguard or snack bar shift if someone called in sick.

The more you dig into this, the more unrealistic it becomes.

It’s not SM that is the problem.
People are the problem. Good Luck “regulating” bad behavior 

What about students from another district?  The law doesn't specify anything about that.  So, theoretically, you couldn't text your niece or nephew from another district.  And since the permission slips are to be kept by the school principals, who would keep the permission slip in that instance....one at each school?  No way that's happening.

 

This entire law and expectations are beyond unrealistic.   I hope this gets overturned by the courts.  It's pretty hard to limit an employees communications 24 hours a day when you are not a 24 hour a day employee. 

All I've seen locally is a few teachers complaining about how intrusive to their lives or how difficult it will be for them.

1. There still will be several ways to communicate with students, just not through social media or direct texting or DMs.

2. If you coach a team, band, club or other extracurricular activity, you have the ability to either

a.) Get the parents to sign a waiver.

b.) Communicate directly with the parent via text messages.

c.) Just use the system approved messaging systems.

I would guess there are very few times a teacher or coach actually NEEDS to communicate with a student outside of times that they are in contact with them.

39 minutes ago, Jumper_Dad said:

All I've seen locally is a few teachers complaining about how intrusive to their lives or how difficult it will be for them.

1. There still will be several ways to communicate with students, just not through social media or direct texting or DMs.

2. If you coach a team, band, club or other extracurricular activity, you have the ability to either

a.) Get the parents to sign a waiver.

b.) Communicate directly with the parent via text messages.

c.) Just use the system approved messaging systems.

I would guess there are very few times a teacher or coach actually NEEDS to communicate with a student outside of times that they are in contact with them.

I agree.  I have seen several teachers post that they are removing students from their Facebook, Instagram, and even TikTok because of the new requirement.  I never have any currently enrolled students on my social media.  I think this new requirement has shown how lax educators have become with connecting with their students on social media, even though 99.9% of the time, it is innocent.

If there is an urgent need for a student to contact a teacher/coach or vise-verca, they can do so through the traceable communication system, just the same as they could send a text message.

16 hours ago, Jumper_Dad said:

All I've seen locally is a few teachers complaining about how intrusive to their lives or how difficult it will be for them.

1. There still will be several ways to communicate with students, just not through social media or direct texting or DMs.

2. If you coach a team, band, club or other extracurricular activity, you have the ability to either

a.) Get the parents to sign a waiver.

b.) Communicate directly with the parent via text messages.

c.) Just use the system approved messaging systems.

I would guess there are very few times a teacher or coach actually NEEDS to communicate with a student outside of times that they are in contact with them.

And remember, social media as we know it, and even texting has only been around for the last 15-20 years. Teachers and coaches did just fine communicating in the years before technology. Boundries are important and too much access can eventually lead to problems.

1 hour ago, rjs4470 said:

And remember, social media as we know it, and even texting has only been around for the last 15-20 years. Teachers and coaches did just fine communicating in the years before technology. Boundries are important and too much access can eventually lead to problems.

Boundaries ARE important I agree but you can not have too much communication.

I’m sure the biggest gripe against coaches by most people is “lack of communication”

Rules and Laws do not affect people that set out to do bad. Bad people are bad people regardless of rules and laws.

1 hour ago, Falcon Pride said:

Rules and Laws do not affect people that set out to do bad. Bad people are bad people regardless of rules and laws.

I heard someone say something similar over the weekend. 

There are already rules/laws in place to stop those people doing bad things.  Those people don't care about those rules/laws.

This seems to have gone off the deep-end, and really surprised it made it this far without much of a fight.  But to be honest, I didn't hear anything about it until it already passed.

1 hour ago, Falcon Pride said:

Boundaries ARE important I agree but you can not have too much communication.

I’m sure the biggest gripe against coaches by most people is “lack of communication”

Rules and Laws do not affect people that set out to do bad. Bad people are bad people regardless of rules and laws.

It's true that people with bad intentions might break laws — but laws aren't just about stopping every bad person. They're about creating a structure that discourages harmful behavior, sets consequences, and protects the rest of us. Most importantly, rules and laws also give society a way to hold people accountable after the fact. Without rules and laws, we wouldn’t just have bad people doing bad things — we’d have no way to stop or punish them. And as society evolves, rules and laws must evolve with it. Without laws, we'd have a lot less structure and order, and no way to hold people who do harm accountable.

On 6/29/2025 at 11:17 AM, New Colonel said:

What about students from another district?  The law doesn't specify anything about that.  So, theoretically, you couldn't text your niece or nephew from another district.  And since the permission slips are to be kept by the school principals, who would keep the permission slip in that instance....one at each school?  No way that's happening.

 

This entire law and expectations are beyond unrealistic.   I hope this gets overturned by the courts.  It's pretty hard to limit an employees communications 24 hours a day when you are not a 24 hour a day employee. 

The documentation alone is going to be a nightmare, especially in bigger districts.  These are the type of things that contribute to admin bloat that siphon off needed monies for more pressing matters.

I'm struggling to see the need of a teacher to contact students outside of the approved methods.

Someone please explain to me why any coach or teacher needs untraceable contact with a student via social media, text, DM or outside email? How is it an intrusion into your freedom? 

As far as the argument above that you can't limit communication 24 hours a day for a non-24 hour a day employee. There are several things teachers can't or shouldn't do with students after school hours. You're still free to communicate with the rest of the world.

7 hours ago, Jumper_Dad said:

I'm struggling to see the need of a teacher to contact students outside of the approved methods.

Someone please explain to me why any coach or teacher needs untraceable contact with a student via social media, text, DM or outside email? How is it an intrusion into your freedom? 

As far as the argument above that you can't limit communication 24 hours a day for a non-24 hour a day employee. There are several things teachers can't or shouldn't do with students after school hours. You're still free to communicate with the rest of the world.

All that you mentioned are traceable.  Even if it has been deleted, it can be recovered.

What isn't "traceable", the phone call.  Which from what I've read is still allowed.  Yes, you'll be able to tell a phone call was made or received, what you won't know is what was said.  Now you've opened up the he/she said vs he/she said can of worms.

The few years I was coaching baseball & took care of the field, which I did mainly in the evenings throughout the year.  Kids would text me & see if I was there or ask when I'd be there so they could come hit or get bullpens in.  Yes, they can still do that, but this "new way" seems a little more out of the way than a quick text for all involved.

9 hours ago, Jumper_Dad said:

I'm struggling to see the need of a teacher to contact students outside of the approved methods.

Someone please explain to me why any coach or teacher needs untraceable contact with a student via social media, text, DM or outside email? How is it an intrusion into your freedom? 

As far as the argument above that you can't limit communication 24 hours a day for a non-24 hour a day employee. There are several things teachers can't or shouldn't do with students after school hours. You're still free to communicate with the rest of the world.

While I generally agree, I think some good points have been raised about what teachers should do if they have a student babysitting for them or doing some other service for them, which I can see as a valid issue  Since no other profession has to engage in this, that's where your freedom issue is coming from (I suppose).

I do think some stricter guidelines on some of these things are overdue but I'm just not sure if this is the best way to go about it.  I'm sure we'll see some modifications and changes in 2026.

35 minutes ago, DanvilleFan said:

While I generally agree, I think some good points have been raised about what teachers should do if they have a student babysitting for them or doing some other service for them, which I can see as a valid issue  Since no other profession has to engage in this, that's where your freedom issue is coming from (I suppose).

I do think some stricter guidelines on some of these things are overdue but I'm just not sure if this is the best way to go about it.  I'm sure we'll see some modifications and changes in 2026.

I'm not a teacher (but I have two kids that are), but I can't imagine asking a student of mine to babysit or do any job/work for me. Too many potential issues if something were to go wrong. And other professions do have the same sort of issues. I've managed people for many years, and have had to maintain boundaries with those I supervise. I could never ask someone from a team that I manage to babsysit, or do work for me. Communication wise it's the same thing...all communication has to go through approved channels, ie email, slack/company instant messaging etc. It's just not a good idea to entangle your personal life with anyone you manage, teach or otherwise have some position of power over.