To Text or Not To Text...

Is texting with students:

Legal?
Appropriate?
Discouraged?

There are some school systems who strongly discourage teachers from texting students.  There are a few that support it.  There are many schools that fall in the middle.  For example, the Oregon school board discourages teachers from sending any individual text messages and says that teachers should only send group texts to students.  This came after a teacher was arrested for sending inappropriate texts to a student in his class.  On the other side of the coin, former Harvard professor Mica Pollock who collaborated with students and teachers at Massachusetts alternative school Full Circle/Next Wave, believes that texting can provide students with extra support.
For understandable legal reasons, schools are cautious when it comes to coming out to say that texting is supported and encouraged.  I think that an important part of making schools more comfortable supporting text messaging would be if there were set guidelines that are made clear to teachers and students.  A rule where teachers are not able to text one student but must send group messages would add a security measure, but may not always be useful or appropriate if a teacher only needs to contact one student.  
Perhaps one of the best alternative is a program such as Remind 101.  This allows teachers to send group texts with student in a class without exchanging private information (telephone numbers). However, this is a program that will only allow teachers to send group messages.  iMessage would be another program that would work for our school once all students have their own iPads.  This will not be possible for another 4 years.

POLL!

What do you think? Please take the poll: "Do you text your students".