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Teachers, find your friends somewhere else!
That’s the message Mayor Bloomberg had for teachers who “friend” their students on Facebook, after yesterday’s exclusive Post report on educators who inappropriately contacted kids on the social-networking site.
“I can’t think of anything less appropriate and I hope they’ll be disciplined,” Bloomberg said at a press briefing yesterday. “We have to make sure that the only people teaching our kids are people who act appropriately and have the judgment to know what is appropriate with students or not.”
Despite the demonstrated dangers, many high-school students characterized student-teacher friendships on Facebook as the norm.
“Yes, most kids are friends with their teachers on Facebook,” said Ninnie Rivera, 16, a senior at the Bayard Rustin Educational Campus. “And if the school told us we couldn’t do that, there would be a lot of angry students.”
As The Post reported yesterday, Bronx teacher Chadwin Reynolds, Queens paraprofessional Laurie Hirsch and Manhattan substitute teacher Stephen D’Andrilli were all fired in the past six months for alleged lewd online behavior toward students.
Reynolds made comments on girls’ appearances and asked one out on a date; Hirsch had a sexual relationship with a teen boy whose photo she posted online; and D’Andrilli chatted girls up on Facebook and wrote to one that her boyfriend didn’t deserve a “beautiful girl like you,” according to schools investigators.
Department of Education officials have said they don’t have guidelines governing student-educator dealings on Facebook.
And while relatively few teens seemed troubled by the practice, a number of female students said they don’t generally accept friendship requests from a male teacher.
“I wouldn’t be friends with teachers unless they were females,” said Carla Bermeo, a sophomore at Liberty HS in Manhattan. “It just seems like Facebook is for friends, and teachers aren’t friends — they’re your teachers!”
Additional reporting by Yoav Gonen