Schools may soon be able to monitor communication between students and school personnel, depending on whether a new bill passes in the Indiana Statehouse.
Senate bill 266, created by Sen. Dennis Kruse (R-Auburn), would require school workers, volunteers, student teachers and students to forward all electronic communication, such as texting and emails, to both the student’s parents and the school principal.
According to the bill, principals of school corporations or nonpublic schools would be required to keep all records for at least two years. By passing this bill, Kruse hopes to eliminate any inappropriate behavior between students and teachers.
John Ellis, Ball State assistant professor of educational leadership, said this would be a burden on school corporations.
“When I looked at the bill, I saw no funding for schools to buy the servers it’s going to take to mass up on keeping every one of those notes,” Ellis said.
Allison Murray, junior elementary education major, said the tracking of emails could make communication more challenging.
“I think it’ll make it harder to communicate because it’s going to limit (teachers),” Murray said.
On the other hand, Lauren Kramer, sophomore elementary education major, said the bill could be useful to have a record in specific situations.
Every school that utilizes email already has a monitoring system that can help them track accounts provided and funded by the school at any time, Ellis said.
One of Ellis’ concerns is that both students and parents can rewrite and continue emails that teachers send to them.
“If somebody wanted to really get at a teacher, they can get into that change, make a change back a couple of emails ago.” Ellis said. “Odds are you wouldn’t look back to find something has been changed and distorted on an email you sent last month to that student.”
School corporations can’t keep track of a teacher’s personal email account unless it is also connected with the school email. Ellis said he would focus more on a teacher’s personal email rather than their school email if they use it more during school hours.
Ellis said the senate needs to find out what schools are doing now and have a knowledge base before they “start dictating statutes, putting limits and putting people in jail.”
He supports the overall idea, but said that senators need to put a little more into the bill before passing it.
If volunteers or employees of the school don’t forward their emails to the parents of the student and principal, they could be charged with a Class A misdemeanor with a “potential maximum punishment of up to one year’s imprisonment and a $5,000 fine.” According to the bill, if a student does not comply with “the provisions concerning electronic communications is subject to discipline by the school the student attends.”
Despite his concerns, Ellis says he favors the concept.
“If we can keep one child safe by doing a whole bunch of work, then it’s certainly worth it,” he said.
If passed, the bill could go into effect July 1.
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