My understanding of the updated EQ Code of Conduct
Our Director-General (Julie Grantham) released updated code of conduct for Education Queensland employees. Specifically of interest is conduct in relation to ICTs and how we use Social Networks with students.
In my official capacity at the school I am in, this is my understanding of these changes and I will be stating as such:
- Don’t use your personal mobile phone to communicate with a student (verbal/sms) unless approved by Principal or Supervisor. I would suggest if this is occurring, please email your HOD outlining which students/class you use this communication for and for what. Try to keep a copy of the message saved somewhere if you have that facility.
- Always use your school email address to communicate with students – and ensure they use their EQ/school one wherever possible to communicate with you. Some students like to use their personal email address as they rarely check their EQ one. Encourage them to check it, or show them how to forward on their EQ email to their private account to alert them that you have emailed them.
- If you are using video in your class, ensure that you document what context you are using for. Talk to your HOD to let them know if you are.
- If you have students on Facebook or MySpace – get rid of them! This isn’t demoting to limited profile, this is deleting them. My personal policy is no one who has been at school within the last 12 months. This is any school in Education Queensland.
- You have a responsibility to make sure your Facebook/Myspace personal profile is appropriately protected from students and others. If you don’t know how to change privacy settings, make sure you ask someone who does (or google it). This is for your own professional safety and good personal practice also.
This impacts on our ability to use Web2.0 applications slightly – however I notice they have omitted the use of Twitter – this is a good thing, as it may mean the department is considering the official use of excellent tools such as Twitter in the classroom.
How do you feel these changes to the code of conduct acknowledges the way educators work in 2009 and beyond?
The updated code of conduct can be found here
–snip from http://education.qld.gov.au/corporate/codeofconduct/pdfs/code_of_conduct.pdf –
2.2.2 (b) Interactions with Students
- You must discourage and reject any advances of a sexual nature initiated by a student with whom you have a professional relationship, or where a prohibition on sexual conduct applies.Your interactions with students must be and be seen to be professional at all times; that is, you must not engage in behaviour that raises a reasonable suspicion that you have engaged in, or will engage in, sexual misconduct; or that the standards applying to the professional employee student relationship have or will be breached.
- You must not communicate with students using a personal mobile phone, either verbally or by text message unless prior approval has been given by your Principal or supervisor. You must discourage students from such communication with staff. Use of a departmental mobile phone must be for official purposes only.
- You must ensure that you do not communicate with students from a private or personal email address. School or institute policies which allow for communication with students via departmental email should be for official purposes only.
- You must not use personal cameras or mobile phones to photograph students unless prior approval has been given by your Principal or supervisor. The use of a personal or school mobile phone or camera to photograph students must be for official purposes only. Parental or custodial approval must be given for the publication of photographs of students.
- You must not use internet social networks such as Face Book, My Space or YouTube to contact or access present students enrolled in any school or institute.
- If you use internet social networks in your personal time you must ensure that the content is appropriate and private, and that you restrict access to specific people who are not students.
–end snip–
Thoughts?
What concerns me is that appears to be saying that I can’t have ANY STUDENT enrolled on my facebook? What about my daughter? Her friends? Children of my friends? Or do they just mean students at my school/that I’ve taught?
This is over 12 months on and no one can give me a straight answer.
I am appalled by some parts of the Code, specifically the way it seeks to control our private lives, the vagueness of the language, and the fact that we can be disciplined for things that we might do in the future. Specifically, “you must not engage in behaviour that raises a reasonable suspicion that you have engaged in, or will engage in, sexual misconduct; or that the standards applying to the professional employee student relationship have or will be breached” In other words, anyone – administrators, parents, students, colleagues etc – can say that we might engage in sexual misconduct because of the way they have perceived something we have done. This is very dangerous to all of us, no matter how innocent we think we are. The vagueness and failure to define specifics leaves us all open to prosecution. In the Powerpoint presentation used at my school it acknowledged the fact that the Code couldn’t cover every situation but that we were to ask ourselves “HOw would it look on 60 minutes?” or “what would mum say?” That is an insult to all of us. It is a case of treating every teacher as a potential pedophile when there are very few, as there have always been.
I think the lack of Twitter as reference is more likley to mean the department is unaware of it rather than thinking of its use in classroom. The listed ones (Face Book) etc are just there as examples (such as ) not a definite list.