Social media decisions will be local

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) - The Virginia Board of Education wants to make sure cell phones and interactive websites are not used to start inappropriate relationships between students and employees.

A couple of years ago the General Assembly ordered every local school district to create policies to prevent sexual misconduct and abuse in Virginia public schools.

Since electronic communications are so common with students, school leaders decided they could not ignore social media.

Thursday, the Virginia Board of Education approved guidelines for the 123 districts in the Commonwealth.

Despite an early proposal to ban social media interaction between students and employees (with the exception of school-sponsored platforms), Board members unanimously decided to allow localities to draft their own specific guidelines.

Virginia Beach Education Association President Dominic Melito said teachers support a more localized approach. In Virginia Beach, the school board has adopted policies that promote using 21st century technology throughout education.

"In a way this comes as a pretty good opportunity to not only deal with how we move forward and what kind of things that we want to do as we move forward, but what are the safeguards we want to put in place," Melito said.

Charles Pyle, Director of Communications with the Virginia Department of Education said the plan is to help employees "avoid appearances of impropriety and keep communication transparent and accessible to supervisors and parents."

There is no deadline for individual school boards to draft and adopt new sexual misconduct prevention policies.