Text Messaging
Teachers Bantering With Students
By Daniel Muniz

Text messaging is the firmly established communication medium for our youth and it is slowly gaining in acceptance by everyone else who has a cell phone. But where and how should school districts draw the line with faculty and staff who casually and routinely text message their students?

Due to the sensational sex scandals that have rocked the nation, school districts, parents, and the local community has every right to be apprehensive when an educator begins to develop an informal socialization with a student. What may appear to be innocent on the surface can also mask something inappropriate. As a result, there is an obligation by our educational leadership to prevent any sexual misconduct from ever occurring. And that is why text messaging between educators and students is a legitimate concern that ought to be addressed.
 

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But first of all, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a teacher maintaining a professional relationship with their pupils.

Educators are expected to be role models to our youth and that is actually part of their job description.

In fact, they can have a tremendously positive influence to kids who have lousy parents or no parents at all. Our country has far too many children who yearn for a responsible adult presence in their lives and good teachers offer an excellent opportunity to provide mentoring and inspiration to someone who really needs it.

Overall, it is extremely beneficial to society that educators have the freedom to make a positive impact on a child’s life.

However, a potential problem arises when a casual friendship is then taken to the next level. And text messaging seems to be providing such a path for a teacher to take.

Unlike a phone call or an email, text messaging is remarkably casual so it is natural for teachers to see no harm in bantering back and forth with their students in this venue. But frequent communication leads to a fraternization that school districts are now becoming increasingly uncomfortable with. And that is because many such seedy sex scandals first started off with something that seemed rather innocuous and harmless to everyone.

It is not that our educational leadership desires that all simple friendships between faculty and their pupils abruptly end but that it remains simple and on a very professional level. Fraternizing with kids on the next level of friendship has all the potential of placing an educator in an ethical dilemma in which using sound judgment and the ability to make good decisions becomes seriously impaired or practically non-existent.

Many experts have often advocated that people who are employed in sensitive jobs ought to adopt the best practice for handling an ethical dilemma which is to avoid placing one’s self in a position that can lead to it. So in other words, “prevention” is the best approach. Consequently, it is this kind preventative measure that has compelled some school districts to frown upon text messaging or even banning it outright.

If a teacher is not constantly text messaging a student, then it is not possible for a casual friendship to develop anywhere beyond that level when such a means is no longer available.

Of course this measure will do absolutely nothing to prevent a determined miscreant educator from having an inappropriate or an illegal relationship with a child. But what it does do is provide is a concrete way for an unsuspecting faculty or staff member from being inadvertently ensnared in a compromising position that could possibly lead to an ethical dilemma with an impressionable or needy student.

But there is also another consideration.

In many of the sex scandals that garnered national headlines, one commonly shared element was law enforcement digging through reams of incriminating text messages that revealed the sordid details of illicit affairs between educators and underage pupils. Instead of having to slog out a “he said, she said” court fight, the content of the text messages provided the rock solid evidence to unequivocally prove that something illegal was going on.

It is reasonable to conclude that such a restriction would be a sensible ban since text messaging played such a big part in these scandals. At the very least, a school district is demonstrating to the public that they are taking extra steps to prevent any kind of inappropriate incident from ever occurring.

And that is a blunt message that the faculty and staff of a school should hear from their educational leadership and one that ought to be reinforced on a regular basis.

There are just too many scandals that keep getting splashed across our headlines. It doesn’t mean that all of our schools are filled with bad apples but that the local community expects administrators to take any necessary precautions.

So does that mean that teachers can no longer be friends with their students?

Absolutely not!

But what it does mean is that there should be a defined limit to how far social contact ought to be taken with our youth. There is a level of professionalism that always has to be maintained and respected. Accordingly, school districts need to draw that line in the sand so that everyone can be reasonably protected.

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