This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Sept. 7, 2011 - The Missouri Senate's education committee swiftly approved a compromise bill this afternoon aimed at addressing a dispute -- now in the courts -- over a newly enacted law that now appears to ban most private teacher-student interaction on the Internet, including social-media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
The chief author of the original ban, state Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, sat smiling as speaker after speaker -- most representing teachers, administrators and school boards -- lauded the compromise she had crafted.
The new wording, in effect, requires local school districts to come up with a policy for social-media communication. But the compromise doesn't go into the particulars of what the policy should be, beyond some broad outlines. It also gives districts more time, until March 2012, to put some a policy in place.
Said Cunningham: "This is a local control issue. We will let the districts control the policy. But there will be a policy."
The big question now is whether Gov. Jay Nixon will go along, should the compromise's path continue to be smooth through the Senate and the House. His proclamation for the special session stipulated that the disputed original wording was to be repealed; Nixon then planned to set up a commission to decide on a replacement.
A Nixon spokesman noted the language in the governor's proclamation: "This matter is limited to the repeal of subsections 162.069.1 through 162.069.4, RSMo, and should not be construed to allow or permit amendments to those subsections or to otherwise enact revised or new language in place thereof."
Cunningham has asserted that changing the wording should still fall within the governor's direction, although his administration so far has signaled otherwise. Cunningham earlier has cited a state Supreme Court from the early 1990s that she says backs up her stance.
Otto Fajen, legislative director for the Missouri chapter of the National Education Association, was among those who testified that they were fine with Cunningham's changes -- which had been crafted amid consultation with all the affected parties.
"There was a recognition that the language we passed in (Senate Bill) 54 was unclear,'' Fajen said. The new language appears to offer protection for students, he continued, while also protecting teachers' free-speech rights and "giving the districts the flexibility to respond to changes in technology."
Joe Ortwerth, the former St. Charles County executive who now heads the conservative Missouri Family Policy Council, lauded Cunningham's original intent to address what he viewed as "this growing and scandalous problem'' of some teachers having inappropriate relations with students. Orthwerth told the Senate panel that he recognized the original language may have had problems, and he was fine with the proposed changes.
Two lawsuits have been filed since the original provisions went into effect, with a judge already barring its implementation over free-speech concerns.
