New Policies for Fargo Public Schools Could Change Teacher/Student Relationship
Sorry, this video is no longer available
Fargo Public Schools are implementing a new policy when it comes to student teacher interaction outside of the classroom.
Superintendent Schatz says this new policy explicitly prohibits any contact that could lead to a sexual relationship.
He says one thing that’s changing is the way students and staff communicate with each other.
“With Facebook, Twitter and all of these other things it’s really become complicated,”said Superintendent Jeff Schatz.
Along with the policy of no sexual relationships,
A second policy change has been made.
“We’re saying lets be explicit in talking about what is prohibited behavior and what is policy and what should we be doing,” said Schatz.
The policy includes if teachers send a text or use social media involving students, it must be coursework or school related.
Some people say that they shouldn’t even be able to do that.
Chelsea Anderson of Fargo said, “No I don’t think that teachers and students need to be texting, I know if I educational wise I would totally email my teacher and I think emailing was way better…because I think texting, well that’s just weird.”
Schatz says the recent case involving West Fargo teacher Aaron Knodel, where he was accused of having sex with a 17 year old student, is not the reason why these policies were changed.
In any event, people in the community say these policies are needed.
Greg Gulbranson said,”I definitely think there should be some sort of policy in place for the communication between teachers and students to make sure things are staying appropriate.”
Schatz isn’t worried about his staff in any misconduct but want to make it clear that it’s not tolerated.
“This is not able teachers doing anything wrong but really what it’s about is providing guidance and giving people the tools to know what are the boundaries and what are the expectations,”said Schatz.
If you’d like to see the full details of the policies click here.
