blurs the boundaries between teacher and student and can lead to discipline by the school board and/
or the College of Teachers.

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying falls within the definition of bullying mandated by the Ministry of Education. ETFO does 
not support teachers going online to supervise their students’ Facebook pages. However, teachers need 
to be aware that the possibility for cyberbullying is very real and should be ready to report any incidents 
they come across to their administrators.

TIPS

Given the potentially serious consequences of misusing e-mail and social networking sites here 
are some tips to consider: 

O if you use social media as a teaching tool ensure that the proper safeguards are in place, 

including providing access to school administrators and parents;

O avoid communicating with individual parents or students through e-mail or social 

networking sites;

O never use your personal account to friend students or parents;
O if you communicate electronically, only do so from your board e- mail account and 

maintain the highest standards of professionalism;

O be vigilant in monitoring what is posted about yourself online.

Defamatory Websites and Social Networking Pages

Multitude of websites offer social networking services and/or act as public message boards that 

cater specifically to students. Some of these websites, such as www.ratemyteacher.com, encourage 
students to comment publicly about the teachers in their school.

Many of these websites do not monitor or filter the content or comments posted by the students that use 
them. Further, these services offer students a level of anonymity that may lead to a diminished sense of 
culpability. The result is that some of the comments and/or content posted on these websites is rude, 
hurtful, and even defamatory.

Historically, when a person was the subject of an offensive and/or defamatory publication, that person 
could sue the publisher and the author of the defamatory content. Today, the Internet has added a new 
level of complexity to this course of action. Many websites are run from servers located outside of Canada 
and the operators can be very difficult to locate. Nevertheless, victims of offensive or defamatory postings 
have avenues of recourse aside from civil litigation.

Most reputable websites and social networking services, such as Facebook and MySpace, have policies 
in place to ensure that any offensive or defamatory postings can be removed as soon as they are brought 
to the attention of the service operators. Postings on other websites, like ratemyteacher.com, can be 
more difficult to remove. This type of website actively encourages students to post comments about 
their teachers and their policies state that they will remove comments only in extreme cases. Also,  
www.ratemyteacher.com

 does not offer an easy to use content removal procedure. However, despite  

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