In recent days, my Facebook feed has been flooded with announcements from friends with careers in education that they are going through the process of deleting current students from their friends lists. This is being done as a result of the passage of Senate Bill 181 into state law.
Basically, the law directs boards of education to, “designate a traceable communication system to be the exclusive means for a school district employee or volunteer to communicate electronically with students.”
The idea here is to protect students’ safety by requiring all electronic communications with adults who are affiliated with the school system to be conducted through open channels that are designed to be totally transparent and easily traceable.
All of this sounds pretty good, but as with most things in life, there is a sort of hazy middle ground where things could, and probably will, get a little complicated.
We live in a digital world. That’s all there is to it. Our cell phones and social media accounts are so tied into how we operate on a day-to-day basis that it would take a considerable amount of effort to truly ensure that there is absolutely no connection anywhere between ourselves and another person, or group of people.
For instance, after over a decade of using one phone number to communicate with both personal and business contacts, there is no way that I could definitively tell you off the top of my head who all is, or is not, currently in my contact list. There is also no way for me to say with absolute certainty who all I do, or do not, currently have text messages or voicemails from sitting in my archive/inbox.
And that’s just my personal mobile device. I couldn’t imagine having to scour my Facebook account in an attempt to delete all past interactions with certain individuals. It’d take me a considerable amount of time, and I do not envy my friends working in education who are being asked to do this very thing right now.
In an effort to be totally transparent, I have not taken the time to read the entire 40-plus page bill. I don’t know all of the exact parameters, and I am not fully aware of the consequences moving forward for any school personnel who might communicate with a student via an unapproved channel. Most of what I know I have picked up from various folks who have taken the time to make social media posts expressing their opinion on the matter.
Personally, I agree with the main goal behind the legislation. As the father of two school-aged children, I am absolutely in favor of rules and regulations that would make it more difficult for ANY potential predator out there to engage in any sort of private communications with my kids that could result in a risk to their well-being. On the other hand, it may be a little unreasonable to expect ZERO online and/or mobile interactions in a world where, as previously stated, we pretty much live our lives online, for better or for worse.
I think asking school personnel to not give out their personal phone numbers or e-mail addresses to students is acceptable. Pretty much all school employees have a work e-mail assigned to them, so that can be used as a substitute when it comes to communicating about assignments and such, no problem.
But what about teachers who are also serving as coaches? Or engage with students in some other sort of extra-curricular capacity? If a team is loading a bus to go out of town for a game and one player is missing, a quick way to figure out what’s going on is for the coach to fire off a quick text to that student-athlete saying, “Where you at?”
Or what if one of our local school drama clubs is preparing for their next big production, and one of the crew who was supposed to arrive with a special set piece or costume component is nowhere to be seen? Same deal.
Just this past week, we ran into a similar situation right here at the News Journal as it pertained to the ongoing lines of communication between ourselves, our summer intern Bella Morin, and her sponsor down at Williamsburg Independent School. We had all agreed to communicate via group text throughout the remainder of the summer period when it comes to sharing info for story assignments, coordinating transportation, setting up potential meetings, and anything else of importance that might come up between now and the end of the internship. With the implementation of SB 181, however, we had to pivot to using e-mail in order to be in compliance. It was a minor inconvenience, and in our case, things have pretty much proceeded without any issues whatsoever. Things may not be as easy in the hypothetical examples used above, though.
Again, I’ve not read the entire bill. I am not an expert on this subject, so I am interested to know just how far the restrictions on e-communications go. For example, I’d like to know what the specifics are as it pertains to social media. Is it that a school employee simply cannot follow a student on social media, and vice versa? If so, I think that is reasonable. However, if a student makes a post about some accomplishment of theirs, and an employee of the school decides to simply like the post or leave a comment saying “congratulations,” then is that a violation? It appears that could be the case, and if so, that seems a tad unreasonable to me.
This takes me back to that “hazy middle ground” that I mentioned near the start of this column. I think that we will find out in the very near future that there is a difference between theory and practice when it comes to this particular piece of legislation, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it get tweaked in future sessions.
In the meantime, I vow to look deeper into the bill itself so that I can be better informed on exactly what it is designed to accomplish and how it plans to accomplish those goals. I invite anyone out there to shoot me an e-mail containing your thoughts on the matter, including any clarifications or criticisms about what I have said here in this column. If you do decide to reach out, and you’d like us to consider your submission as a future “Letter to the Editor” entry, please be sure to keep it to 500 words or less and include your name and a contact number. The number will not be published, but we will use it to confirm with you that you are okay with us running your words in print.
This is a topic that a lot of people are talking about and dealing with right now, which is why I wanted to go ahead and try to weigh in, even though my personal understanding of the situation is, admittedly, not perfect. How will things go from here? Only time will tell, but I have noticed at least one online petition circulating that asks the Kentucky General assembly to not enforce SB 181 until it can be reviewed and amended during the 2026 legislative session. The petition had just under 1,200 signatures as of Tuesday morning.
