Parent education evenings can serve as a starting point and can underscore for parents the need to reach out for guidance and support from a community. Oftentimes, parents feel they are alone as they figure out how to create boundaries at home.

One parent wrote: “When my son has ‘homework time,’ unless I am actually looking at his computer screen to make sure he is working on homework, he is either IM-ing or playing an internet war game. This is a very frustrating and concerning situation for me as a parent. I need the tools to monitor his use effectively. At home, much of his computer time for schoolwork is spent off task.” Schools can bring together parents to develop mutually beneficial and reinforcing terms of use and brainstorm strategies for effective monitoring at home.

Some schools have even gone so far as to create a list of acceptable behaviors on Facebook and on the Internet in general. Parents do not want to feel alone, and they should not have to if schools can figure out with them how to balance the exciting features of social networking with the need for safe structures for teens.

My sister offers an excellent case in point. She asked me to open a Facebook account last year because she was worried about what her sixteen-year old son was doing on Facebook. She figured, correctly, that her son would be more inclined to “friend” his uncle than his own mother. Sure enough, I became one of my nephew’s friends and I periodically check his page to make sure his postings do not sink into the pit of locker room language. On occasion, I have had to call my nephew to ask him to take down certain posts that could be perceived as offensive. Of course, what a sixteen year old deems inappropriate is quite different from my own sensibilities as a school administrator. However, I did teach high school students for seven years, so I have a pretty good idea of the line between cool and out of bounds.

School administrators struggle with transgressions after school hours and outside of school networks. While unhealthy online activity takes place in homes and on weekends, the after effects often ripple through schools and affect peer relationships on a daily basis. Schools can raise parental awareness through conversations and information sharing, but the trickier issue is whether to impose discipline on students for inappropriate and unsafe cyber actions outside of school. Now, with the Evans lawsuit looming, even more schools will cower at the prospect of disciplining student actions on Facebook and other social networking sites, for fear of reprisal.

Schools can put their heads in the sand and ignore the problem. They can draw a line in the sand, with zero tolerance rules written into school handbooks, or they can shift with the changing sands of social networking and seek solutions to incorporate social networking and utilize it as part of the educational program for students. We have reached the tipping point here and schools must address and embrace the prolific energy surrounding the Facebook age.

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