Abington Substitute Teacher Fired After Friending Students On Facebook

May 26, 2011 8:41 PM

(credit: AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

Reporting Mary Blake

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ABINGTON (CBS) – The decision to fire an Abington High School substitute teacher after he friended students on Facebook has reignited the debate over student safety versus the rights of teachers outside the classroom.

Abington school officials said the communication was inappropriate, but gave no further details. No criminal investigation has resulted to date.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Mary Blake reports

Glenn Koocher with the Mass Association of School Committees says the policy limiting electronic communications to classroom work only is what it has been recommending for the past several months.

There may be many academically sound communications on social media, but friending is a whole different story,” he claimed.

Koocher does acknowledge that the hard-line stance is controversial.

“I’m not sure the principals want to be spending their time going to the Facebooks of their faculty to check and see who their friends are,” he said.

Koocher predicts this issue will likely surface in union grievances and possibly in lawsuits.

Abington Substitute Teacher Fired After Friending Students On Facebook

Ellen

Not professional at all. You are suppose to be a teacher, not a friend. Kids have all the friends they need, and what they want is someone who can actually be a teacher just like they need parents who can actually act like parents, not friends.

buildmeister

What a shame. I was friends with many of my high school teachers, which made the experience much more positive than most people have at that age. I see no problem with teachers or students being friends, virtual or real. Why not just institute a restraining order for teachers against their students outside of school.

What’s funny is that I thought the teachers union would be upset because it might result in homework questions outside of school time.

Sal

Ellen- This isn’t the fifties. I am sure if it were a 60 year old female kindergarten teacher/mother/wife/grandmother this wouldn’t be an issue. Is it in good taste? Probably not but what you said is simply ignorant.