Staff member's (any individual employed by the District, including part-time and substitute employees and student teachers) are encouraged to communicate with students and parents/guardians for educational purposes (a reason associated with the staff member's duties in the district including, but not limited to: counseling, the treatment of a student's physical injury, or coordination of an extracurricular activity, depending on the staff member's job description) using a variety of effective methods, including electronic communications. As with other forms of communication, staff members must maintain professional boundaries with students while using electronic communication regardless of whether the communication methods are provided by the District or the staff member uses his or her own personal electronic communication devices, accounts, web pages or other forms of electronic communication. Staff members may not utilize a non-work internet site (site used by the teacher primarily for personal purposes and not for educational purposes) as a form of electronic communication without the prior approval of the building administrator. Staff members may not maintain a work-related internet site (site used by a teacher for educational purposes) unless it is available to school administrators and/or the child's parent/guardian.

The District's policies, regulations, procedures and expectations regarding in-person communications at school and during the school day also apply to electronic communications for educational purposes, regardless of when those communications occur. Staff communications must be professional and student communications must be appropriate. Staff members may only communicate with students electronically for educational purposes between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. Staff members may use electronic communication with students only as frequently as necessary to accomplish the educational purposes.

Communications between employees and students will be primarily direct, oral or written in nature. To facilitate this, a staff member's supervisor may authorize a staff member to communicate with students using the staff member's personal telephone numbers, addresses, web pages (if district approved) or accounts (including, but not limited to, accounts used for texting) to organize or facilitate a district-sponsored class or activity if the communication is deemed necessary or beneficial, if a district-sponsored form of communication is not available, and if the communication is related to the class or activity. Any text message that is sent to a student or students will also be sent at the same time to the cell phone number (if available) of the parents/guardians of the student or students receiving the text message. Staff members may be required to provide their supervisors with all education-related communications with district students upon request.

Communication between a teacher and his/her children or siblings is not affected by this policy and will be permitted.

The District does not have sufficient staff to monitor every communication between employees and students and does not, therefore, commit to monitoring each communication. Nonetheless, where there is reason to believe that an employee has inappropriately communicated with a student(s) they may require the teacher to provide access to the specific communication in question.

The District will provide official electronic media which may be utilized by employees for communication with students for dissemination of school related information (i.e. homework, practice schedules, supplemental instructional material).