District 93 board debates student-teacher contact policy

A policy limiting teacher-student contact outside of the classroom in Carol Stream Elementary District 93 came under fire during a reading of a possible revision by a board member who said the policy's use of the word "should" makes it appear to be more of a suggestion than a policy.

However, other board members disagreed at the district's meeting Thursday and said his opinion of using the word "shall" would make the policy too restrictive.

Board member Richard Boyer said students' safety drives the measure and, because of this, any contact outside of school that does not include a parent or guardian should be prohibited.

"In the spirit of student safety first, above all others, there are a lot of verbs in here that should be changed," Boyer said of the policy. "Wherever it says 'should consider' or 'should be avoided,' it should say 'shall.'"

Boyer said the change would make the policy stronger and more clear. The purpose of the discussion had been to fine tune it in order to determine how to govern contact between teachers and students on social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. But the focus quickly turned to the wording and situations where students and teachers might interact in public.

The main dispute with the policy is in the third paragraph, where it states that interaction outside of school or school-related activities "should be avoided."

Boyer wants that changed to "shall be avoided" so there is no question as to what the policy will enforce.

Board member Angela Kneisel said changing it would mean that many teachers who spend time with students outside of the school in a mentoring situation would be in violation of the policy.

"We don't want it to be that black and white," she said. "There's more to a relationship between students and teachers than standing in front of a classroom."

Board member Bill King agreed and said getting rid of interaction outside of the classroom would be detrimental.

He said if it were changed, a teacher could not say hello to a student if he saw them at Town Center, for instance.

"I'd sure hate to totally prohibit any interaction," he said. "I'd imagine thousands of kids have had their lives turned around by a teacher taking an extra step outside of a classroom."

Boyer did not back down, however, saying the ambiguous terminology left it open to interpretation and not everyone has the same judgment as to what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.

But board Vice President Tony Cicero said he trusted teachers in the district.

"We respect our staff enough to make the right call," he said.

The policy is expected to return to the board for further clarification next month.