Following Sex Scandals, Districts Impose Message Ban

July 24, 2008 -- Two Mississippi school districts have banned text messaging and online social network communication between faculty and their young pupils following a string of teacher-student sex scandals.

The new policies, believed to be among the first in the nation, come as authorities have uncovered a growing number of teacher-student sexual misconduct incidents found to have been facilitated through text-messaging and Internet communication. Representatives of both school districts told ABC News that the policies are not the result of any particular incident.

"This was just an attempt by us to put into policy that there doesn't need to be any informal socialization between teachers and students," said Lamar County school board attorney Rick Norton.

Norton, who initiated the Internet communication policy for Lamar County schools, said it prohibits "fraternization via the Internet between employees...and students."

"The main thing is that we actually encourage interaction via the Internet for educational purposes," he said. "What we're trying to prevent is communication of an inappropriate nature."

In Mississippi and other states, inappropriate online communication between teachers and students has proved to be a factor in revelations of sexual misconduct.

A Greene County, Miss., teacher was sentenced to 10 years in prison in May for sending sexually explicit text messages to a Greene County High School student.

In January, a Biloxi teacher was charged and later admitted to sexual battery of a teenage student after police revealed text message records that indicated the pair had had sex on multiple occasions. In one message the teacher called the student her "little sex fiend," according to authorities.

The recent Mississippi cases are among many sexual misconduct incidents in America. An Associated Press investigation found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, surrendered, or sanctioned from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct.