Court rules that Pennsylvania school can discipline student for Myspace parody

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A U.S. appeals court says Pennsylvania school students can be disciplined for creating MySpace parodies of school officials at home — but only if they are likely to disrupt school.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court reached different conclusions in two cases Thursday that involve suspending students for fake MySpace pages created off-campus.
In a Mercer County case, the court’s 2-1 opinion says a high school cannot reach into a family’s home and police Internet speech.
But another three-judge panel says Schuylkill County school officials can suspend a teen for her sexually explicit parody of her principal. The panel says the school could expect the posting to disrupt school.
Similar free-speech cases have surfaced across the country, with mixed rulings.
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What can students post online about their principals?

A federal appeals court must decide whether a student has the to create a lewd myspace page about her principal. One one side, the student says she is doing this outside of class, but the district says it's reverberating inside school.
Should there be a line? Should schools have the right to discipline students for what they put online?

The profile police

I have had numerous conversations with people about what students, both under 18 and in college, put online. A few years ago, I spoke with one college administrator who took pictures of students off of Facebook and Myspace and put them up on the bulletin board outside his office. The message was clear - what you put on the Internet is not as private as you think it is.
Now, according to the Washington Post, school police are using that to their advantage. They are searching social networking sites for campus-related crimes.

Is it OK for a teacher to text message a student or communicate with them on a social networking site?

It's a topic I wrote about Sunday. Should teachers text students? What about friending them on Myspace or Facebook? It's an issue that districts are now starting to grapple with. Some say not at all, others say only in appropriate ways.
What do you think district policies about teacher texting and social networking should be?