Florida School District Facebook Policy: First @ Florida State, Possibly Even Country. Michael Bloomberg “Can’t Think of Anything Less Appropriate”.

One Florida School district has made a new “Facebook policy”, a first in Florida state, and possibly even the entire country. The rules? Unfriend your students. Teachers are now told to not friend their students and it is labeled “inappropriate” behavior. The guidelines from Lee County School District are not mandatory, only suggestions: “Everyone knows that there are teachers nationwide that may have inappropriately communicated with students through email, text message or Facebook —and even some cases, those teacher-student relationships have been taken to an even further level of inappropriate behavior,” said Joseph Donzelli, director of communications for the district (do they really need that job in this economy?).

This echoes the words of Michael Bloomberg, the consummate business-tycoon-turned-politician, “can’t think of anything less appropriate” than a teacher Facebook “friending” a student. Aside from suggesting that for teachers to be friends with students is inappropriate, it seems to imply that the mayor, quite aged, perhaps has no idea of what Facebook really is, or how it is traditionally used. It is rather common for friends, family, co-workers, bosses, teachers, and students to “friend” each other. It also implies that his mind is limited to some fairy tale world, in which “friending” students is the least appropriate thing going on. Joe America would beg to differ. It’s when the teacher begins sending harassing messages (resulting in the first ever facebook restraining order) or making sexual advances, that things reach a truly inappropriate level. His reaction is mostly over the latter, as three New York teachers were fired for “facebook flirting”, under his watch, and Bloomberg is reacting to the scandal.

But is the threat really that large? A new study has revealed that 72% of parents monitor their children’s facebook profiles and more and more grandmothers are joining as well: an audience that is watching very carefully for any would be offenders (or perhaps watching too carefully at their children’s photo collections, scanning for “indecent” behavior and lecturing them afterwards). We all can hope, that those parents would catch any would-be offenses before they happen.