Education Law

Adventures in Facebook

The stories just keep on coming, but here is a particularly entertaining one out of Charlotte courtesy of my fabulous colleague Beth Rous. Seems teachers just can't understand that Facebook is a public space.

Superintendent Peter Gorman has recommended firing a teacher who listed “teaching chitlins in the ghetto of Charlotte” as one of her activities and drinking as one of her hobbies.

In her “About Me” section she wrote: “I am teaching in the most ghetto school in Charlotte.”

... the pages Campbell submitted included photos of female teachers in sexually suggestive poses and a black male teacher who listed “Chillin wit my n---as!!!” as an activity and had a suggestive exchange with a female “Facebook friend” accompanying a shirtless photo of himself.

The thing is, it is not even a secret anymore that districts are checking in on their teachers.

CMS has an investigator who specializes in online issues, including reports of inappropriate material posted by students about teachers. Carr said “several” employees a year are disciplined for inappropriate posts. CMS generally responds to complaints, rather than randomly viewing pages.

CMS and other districts also check Web pages, especially popular networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, before hiring, Carr said.

Yet, these Facebook embarrassments continue to roll in with regularity. I have been chided in the blogosphere for recommending against usage of Facebook by pre-service teachers on the job market, but how many more examples do we need? Teachers use facebook at their own peril. If you use facebook in a non-professional manner, just be prepared to be fired for it. Students, parents and administrators absolutely will check your page and that information absolutely will be used in employment actions against you. I hate discouraging technology usage, but it is clear that this is one particular technology that many teachers simply have not figured out how to use responsibly.

Full post as published by Edjurist on November 13, 2008 (boomark / email).