[GRAPHIC: FOR YOUR FAMILY]

JUDY: In our For Your Family segment this morning, new policies on texting between teachers and students. Several local school districts are starting to put in this new policy, limiting the ways and the means their teachers and staff can communicate with students, for example, banning the use of social networking sites and also texting between a teacher and a student. What does that mean for your family and why? Our legal expert Thomas Glasgow is here to help explain the legal reasons behind this move. Good morning, Thomas.

THOMAS GLASGOW: Good morning, Judy.

JUDY: So some school districts are instituting this new policy. Tell me what is this policy. What is it saying?

THOMAS GLASGOW: Well, several policies have been instituted by school boards in different school districts and around the state in order to protect both the teachers and the students for texting and social networking and emails that go on outside the scope of the school. One of the reasons that they want to do that is not only to protect the student from inappropriate or misunderstood context but to protect the teacher in the school as well.

JUDY: Well, let's talk about the legal ramifications for a teacher texting a student, not necessarily about the inappropriate ones. That seems to be obvious to all of us. But what about the ones that are misunderstood? What are the potential risks that we're talking about?

THOMAS GLASGOW: Well, one of the big things that schools are dealing with is with texting. And you have a situation where a teacher can reach out at 10:00 at night while your kid's in their room and communicate with the kid while you're sitting and watching TV and vice versa. The child can communicate with the teacher. It's a common occurrence, especially with the younger teachers, because they need to end up contacting and talk to them about homework, about other things. And these texts can be misunderstood. I missed you in school today can be misunderstood by the parent as well as someone else who may find the phone from the child.

JUDY: And what kind of criminal charges are we talking about that could potentially result from a text that's misunderstood?

THOMAS GLASGOW: Well, we're talking about it's something that's misunderstood. You can be charged with electronic harassment. If it is --it's very easy to get off topic with texting, as most people can understand from their texting. And if something is just being talked about in between the two, text has its own language. It can be misinterpreted by someone. You could if you attempt to in some way make someone uncomfortable or make someone--put something suggestive out there--that could be misinterpreted as electronic harassment, which if the person's over 18 as the sender and the person is under 18 that receives it, could be a felony.

JUDY: And you also brought up something very interesting when we were discussing this before this segment, which is the legal risks can really go both ways. If a student were to text the teacher or staff member making comment about the family in one way or another and that's misunderstood, it can turn into a full-blown investigation with DCFS.

THOMAS GLASGOW: That's correct. Things such as, you know, teenage angst of I hate my parents. They did this to me or that to me. Then it puts the teacher in a very awkward situation where they have to report this to DCFS. And as a result, they in turn, being mandatory reporters reporting to DCFS, this could become a full-blown investigation onto the parents by something that was misunderstood through an out-of-school email or through an out-of-school text. Things really need to go through the district. They need to be transparent. They need to be seen by others. And they need to be prudent when you talk to someone outside the scope. Remember, you're still talking to a child. And a child is still talking to an adult. With text, it's so much easier to bring it down to a level where you guys are both equal. And it creates the risk of a school being sued for personal information getting out because of something that they have done, posting on a wiki or a blog or a text, where they're talking about other students. And it becomes inappropriate at some point.

JUDY: Yeah.

THOMAS GLASGOW: So right through the district website is the best way to do this and keep it transparent.

JUDY: It's an easy--it's easy to understand why some of these districts instituted this new policy. Thomas, thank you so much for--

THOMAS GLASGOW: [Interposing] Thank you.

JUDY: --coming in this morning. And right now, actually, we want to-