• Operate in all circumstances online as a professional – as you would in the community.

• If you are using a web page or social media site professionally with students, treat the space like a classroom. Apply the same rigorous professional standards.

• Be transparent and authentic. Use your true, professional identity at all times. Even if you create a false identity, courts can compel disclosure of your true identity.

• Avoid impulsive, inappropriate or heated comments.

• Ensure that your comments do not incite others to make discriminatory or other professionally unacceptable comments.

• Use your professional email and social media accounts for professional electronic communications; avoid using your personal accounts.

• Be aware of your employer’s applicable policies and programs regarding the use of social media/e-communications and the appropriate use of electronic equipment. Even if your employer has no applicable policy, it is your responsibility 

• Teach students appropriate online behavior and the proper use of comments and images.

• Maintain professional boundaries by communicating with students and others electronically at appropriate times of the day and through established education platforms (for example, an authorized school web page rather than a personal account).

• Maintain your professionalism by using a formal, courteous and professional tone in all communications with students and parents.

• Avoid exchanging private texts, phone numbers, personal email addresses, videos or photos of a personal nature with students.

• Do not issue, and decline, “friend” or “follow” requests from students. Consider the privacy implications of accepting these requests from parents.

• Notify parents and your school administrator before using social networks for classroom activities. Check your employment policies to see if you are required to provide an administrator or parents with access passwords.

• Intimate or personal texting with students

• Inviting students to meet privately or without a valid educational context

• Sending personal email or social networking contact information to students to communicate for personal reasons

• Using informal and unprofessional language with students, such as profanity

• Criticizing students, parents or colleagues openly on Facebook

• Posting or forwarding content, links or comments that might be considered offensive, discriminatory or inconsistent with professional or ethical standards.

• Using school equipment to access, view or download pornography

Today’s classrooms do more than house neat rows of desks facing a blackboard. They are sensory rich environments that affirm and inspire while developing a safe and inclusive space – posters, quotations, artwork, banners, and meaningful objects all create a learning and living aesthetic for students and educators alike.

And just as importantly, classroom décor exhibits and champions certain values.

By simply creating and curating the classroom space, teachers become the arbiters of those values and how they are messaged. And this is rarely an issue – after all, embracing the rich diversity that is brought into the building by all schooling participants, including educators, is a good thing.

Consider the Ohio math teacher who recently faced a barrage of public criticism when posters addressing social issues were visible in her remote classroom, or the Texas teacher who was briefly suspended because she personalized her virtual background with several posters – one advocating for inclusivity and another drawing attention to systemic racism.

Even under the best of circumstances, maintaining a reasonable amount of personal privacy has been challenging for educators. Not only is the job of teaching intrinsically public, but it also necessarily involves extensive interaction with impressionable children. No one should be particularly surprised that school boards, administrators, and parents have a keen interest in the deportment and conduct of the person at the head of the classroom.

We have learned over the last fifteen years or so, of course, that what happens behind closed doors does not necessarily stay behind closed doors. Thanks to the increasingly toxic combination of personal computers, social media networks, and mobile devices, all of us can share our personal lives with the world. When we do so, we implicitly invite the world to judge our behavior.

It might be a good time to think about how you use social media and the amount of personal information you share with the world.

**This is an excerpt from "The Emerging Playbook: Part IV" by Troy Hutchings, NASDTEC. To read the complete post visit https://www.nasdtec.net/blogpost/1757877/362465/The-Emerging-Playbook-Part-IV **