Ohio Education Society "Strongly" Recommends Teachers Remove their Social Networking and Dating Profiles

The Columbus Dispatch reports that the Ohio Education Association (OEA) has sent a memo to all of its members on October 16th, in response to the Dispatch's article called, "The ABCs of Betrayal".

The issue is with educators having profiles on openly accessible sites like Facebook and Match.com, where students can contact teachers outside of school hours, or view content about these same educators that may be highly inappropriate. Several quick searches on Facebook of my own found some questionable content along these same lines, as did the Dispatch.

Another problem with teachers using these kinds of sites to share their personal lives is that the information included within can be used in disciplinary hearings should an issue arise. This has already happened with one former teacher in Delaware whose blog (used by students to communicate with him) carried sexual and violent references to a wide variety of activities. He was later convicted using the blog as evidence for having sex with a student.

Do you think that teachers or other public officials working with children need to have a higher bar online than the rest of us? Should teachers be forbidden from using dating or social networking sites in their free time?

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• Finding a Safe Dating Personals Site
• Do You Google Your Date?