According to a post on the NJPSA website a new law in Louisiana requires school districts to develop policies to monitor all electronic communication between teachers and students using non-school issued electronic devices. These policies have to be in place by November 15th. Parents also have the option of requiring that no communication takes place between their child and a teacher using personal electronic devices.

I imagine some terrible events must have occurred in Louisiana for the state legislature to take such action. I wonder if the problem was wide spread or if it was a few bad apples that caused the problems. 

Further on in the article it states:

Similar policies exist in many school districts across the country, and at least one other state has considered such legislation in recent years. But critics question the measures, saying they will likely restrict appropriate communication between teachers and students and discourage the use of new technologies.

I do think there should be policies regarding student-teacher communication. Currently I use my school email account and school computer to send text messages to student's cell phones. The reason I do not use my own cell phone is I do not want students to have my cell phone number.

I know of a teacher who chaperoned an overnight class trip and was responsible for a group of about 15 students. He took each student's cell phone number and created a distribution list so that he could send out one text message and reach the whole group at once. During the day they were at a large zoo and the students were allowed to roam unsupervised with at least one other student. He told them he would periodically send out a text message and require them to meet at a certain location in a specified amount of time. If the students did not show up at the required time they had to spend the rest of the day under the direct supervision of the teacher. I thought this was a brilliant use of a cell phone. If one of my own children went on that trip I would have wanted them to be in this teacher's group. Not only could the teacher contact the students, but the students could contact the teacher if they ran into any trouble. Will the Louisiana law stifle this type of creative use of personal electronic devices?

I would like to see local school boards and school districts decide how to handle this problem instead of it being mandated from the state legislature.