Township High School District 211 is looking at a policy to dictate social media use from employees, following a trend as schools are trying to adapt to the ever-changing world of Facebook and Twitter.

The new policy was presented to the board Feb. 16  and sets up guidelines on what exactly teachers are and aren’t allowed to do on social media, specifically how they interact with students. The district does not have an existing policy on social media use.

According to the draft policy, which is has not yet been approved by the board, teachers will be allowed to talk to students, parents or community members on Facebook or other social media sites, so long as it is related to education. The policy also states that those communications can be searched and reviewed by the administration if a request is made, such as through state or federal law.

Most of the policies are fairly straight-forward and obvious — anything posted with sexual content is cause for disciplinary action — and adds that all teachers can be held personally responsible for non-school content, which “must not interfere with the employee’s job duties or the school environment.”

District Spokesman Tom Petersen said the proposed policy is not in response to any specific incident, but was something that needed to be spelled out to protect teachers and students. For example, he said some teachers might have wanted to use Facebook to speak with students for legitimate educational reasons, but did not know the protocol.

“Some teachers were already using it, but there just needed to be clear boundaries” established by policy, he said.

This was the first time the policy came before the board, and it was not discussed at the meeting. It will likely come up again for discussion and a vote at a later meeting.