| By Big Radio News Staff |

School District of Janesville officials are drafting a policy to govern electronic communication between staff and students.

District Director of Human Resources Scott Garner presented the policy to the school board’s Personnel, Policy and Curriculum Committee on Monday.

The policy says district employees would be prohibited from using personal devices, email addresses and social media accounts to contact students.

The district would establish a list of approved means of communications, such as district-provided email accounts or online learning platforms.

Records of communications would be kept, and the district would be able to ask staff members to provide those records upon request.

The draft policy, posted online on the district’s meeting agenda portal, also outlines various types of inappropriate interactions, including ones that are romantic in nature, ones that threaten or harass students, and several others. Staff members would be required to report known or reasonably suspected violations of the policy to district administrators.

Employees would also be encouraged to check their privacy settings on their personal social media accounts and consider limiting or blocking public access to their profiles.

Two Craig High School teachers resigned last year after the district found they sent racy messages and photos to a student in April.

Garner says the document is still in a draft phase. Committee member Michelle Haworth asked Garner who will be included in the definition of “staff” under the new policy and whether it might apply to district volunteers. Garner said policy writers will consider that as they finish the final draft.

Garner said building administrators would go over the new policy with their employees and have them affirm that they’ve read it if it makes it through the committee and the school board.

The committee did not vote on the policy Monday night because it’s still a work in progress. Garner said when the draft is done, it will come back to the PPC Committee for a vote before going to the full school board.

Garner said NEOLA, an organization that provides policy language to school districts nationwide, did not have a policy on staff-student electronic communication and that NEOLA showed interest in picking up the Janesville policy if it gains final approval.