Abington Substitute Teacher Fired After Friending Students On Facebook
ABINGTON (CBS) - The decision to fire an Abington High School substitute teacher after he friended students on Facebook has reignited the debate over student safety versus the rights of teachers outside the classroom.
Abington school officials said the communication was inappropriate, but gave no further details. No criminal investigation has resulted to date.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Mary Blake reports
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Glenn Koocher with the Mass Association of School Committees says the policy limiting electronic communications to classroom work only is what it has been recommending for the past several months.
There may be many academically sound communications on social media, but friending is a whole different story," he claimed.
Koocher does acknowledge that the hard-line stance is controversial.
"I'm not sure the principals want to be spending their time going to the Facebooks of their faculty to check and see who their friends are," he said.
Koocher predicts this issue will likely surface in union grievances and possibly in lawsuits.
