As a postsecondary instructor, my academic freedom rights are strong. But if I returned to K-12, I shouldn’t expect to have any, I believe. Justin, I’m in for an article (starting in the fall) if you are!

But, I think this speaks to the confusion that exists right now regarding teacher speech. I don’t think anyone REALLY knows what is going on. Each time a court looks at this issue right now, they have to figure out just how far to extend Garcetti so it is sort of a guessing game except in a few Circuits that have already decided the issue.

Enjoyed the conversation though.

If you have a conversation at the local convenience store about your school or district, does that met the criteria? Is there a nexus based on that medium? I’m still stuck on using that as a comparison to expressing opinions, asking questions, and clarifying through edublogging as well. I don’t really see that there is a lot of difference between my opinion orally or in black and white (or digital images). Other than proof/evidence in a litigious situation, why would it matter?

I don’t see this any differently than any other off-campus speech case, and I don’t think the courts do either. If there is a nexus to the school and to instruction, then the school has the ability to regulate. Since most of what our edubloggers say online does relate to the school, then it is fair game. If it is truly off campus then sure the school has no place regulating, but I would venture to guess that at least 1/2 of what edubloggers do meets the nexus.

So, in those situations where there is a nexus, the school can regulate unless there is a reason it can’t, such as the First Amendment. But, the default position is regulate so we have to do the First Amendment analysis which I think pretty much starts and ends with Garcetti these days, online or offline.

Now, there are lots of questions that we don’t know answers to here and why I think this would make a nice law journal or ed. journal article. First, what part of the blog counts in creating the nexus? If you have 300 posts and 8 directly relate to the school, are all the posts deemed to have a nexus? So, do we consider the blog as a whole or individual posts? Second, should different types of blogs be treated differently? Blogs are sort of a catch all medium and just as we would treat a newspaper editorial differently than a diary entry and differently than a professional journal article, perhaps we should be treating blogs differently since the medium can accommodate all those different types of expression. Third, is a blog part of your instruction? If you look at Mr. Williams 6th Grade Math (http://mrwilliams.edublogs.org/) that is clearly a teaching blog and should probably be considered part of his job since parents and students are his chief readers. But, compare that to The Daily Grind (http://ahighcall.blogspot.com/) in which the author even says at the top of the page, “The thoughts expressed here are my own and not intended to represent the school or district I work for” and that might be a different picture. Plus, does that disclaimer even mean anything? Should we all be running disclaimers?

Anyway, there are lots of questions here, but the question of whether or not blogging can fall under the regulatory arm of the school is pretty much answered in my mind in the affirmative.

But, that’s what appears to be happening. When I tell my students they just sort of sit and stare at me, like …. “what?”