Page 6 - Professsional Advisory: Maintaining Professionalism - Use of Electronic Communication and Social Media

Examples of inappropriate electronic communication include:
• intimate or personal texting with students
• inviting students to meet privately or without a valid educational context
• sending personal email or social networking contact information to students to communicate for personal reasons
• using informal and unprofessional language with students, such as profanity
• criticizing students, parents or colleagues
openly on Facebook
• posting or forwarding content, links
or comments that might be considered offensive, discriminatory or inconsistent with professional or ethical standards.
Other behaviours that have warranted disciplinary measures include:
• sending graphic sexual materials elec- tronically to students
• using school equipment to access, view or download pornography, including child pornography
• luring students and non-students via the Internet, as defined by the Criminal Code.
The Ontario College of Teachers Act and the Student Protection Act include “behaviour or remarks of a sexual nature by a member towards a student” in the definition of sexual abuse. Remarks of a sexual nature communicated online without any physical contact can be considered sexual abuse.
Teachers who have been found to have groomed a student for sexual purposes often use electronic messages to gradually win a student’s trust and establish an inappropriate relationship. Even if a member waits until the student has graduated before a sexual relationship occurs, the electronic communi- cations with the student could result in findings of professional misconduct against the teacher.
4 PROFESSIONAL ADVISORY: USE OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL MEDIA