Proposal would mandate school social media policies

By YUEHAN LIU
Capital News Service
LANSING–Social media is one of the communication ways between teachers and students. Now a pending bill would require all districts and charter schools to have a social media policy that would regulate e-contacts, especially one-on-one contacts between staff and students. Aaron Keel, assistant director of government relations for the Michigan Association of School Boards, said the organization thinks it is good to have such a policy because a lot of school districts don’t have one. Education experts such as Terry Abbott, the former chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Education, have linked sexual misconduct to social media. “Two things have become popular and had a massive effect on the prevalence of sexual misconduct in schools: social media and text messaging.