Whether for a field trip, convenience of parent communications, travel with students, or sharing resources, as teachers, sometimes our “private” cell phone numbers are public. In the good old days (if we had cell phones then), that would have been just an innocent connection to support the learning relationship with your class. However, in the modern educational climate, it could end your career instantly. How do you protect yourself and stay connected to students and parents in the landscape? Try Google Voice.
Let’s be real here. Some districts have contract clauses which prohibit friending a student on FaceBook or texting a student. Some teachers rely on FaceBook with parents because they don’t check email, nor do many students. Teachers must find effective ways to communicate classroom needs with students and parents. Dedicated teachers go to great lengths, expending significant time and effort to do so. Teachers put students first, but it can have unintended consequences.
CAVEAT: There are many news and criminal stories reported about inappropriate teacher-student contact. It isn’t new. It isn’t right. That is not the subject matter of this post. This post, on the other hand, serves to allow good teachers to distance themselves from the appearance of these very inappropriate situations.
Beauty in Boundaries
As a social studies teacher, time is spent each year addressing appropriate references by students who post current events summaries with first names for public figures and the president’s last name as an identifier. As a public servant, the title should always come first, as a recognition that the individual has sworn an oath to serve the country before themselves. It’s fine to debate the actuality of that statement, but the appropriateness is true.
How are teachers different? Teacher’s sacrifice time each day, often beyond contracted hours. Teachers forego the flexibility of vacation time to meet the needs of the school schedule. Teachers often respond to student and parent emails after hours. In Chinese practice, teachers are referred to as Laoshi (teacher) before their names, out of respect. Ms., Mrs., Mr., or Miss is applied in most American situations. In private, students don’t even use those, sometimes far worse.
Wearing Hats
It’s sometimes called wearing many hats. Devotees of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood might remember putting on a jacket or sweater or shoes for different excursions. Creating a mobile communication space as a teacher is a “hat” to put on when you are on field trips, communicating with parents, or finding ways to reach students where they are. Google Voice makes that possible without disclosing your personal phone number.
Creating a Google Voice account is easy at voice.google.com. There are two options: Personal and Business use. Business use is for professionals who need office mobility, somewhat like a receptionist who routes their calls. This and many useful features are available for a fee. However, for a teacher, the personal use is the best choice. Some school districts do not permit Google Voice accounts tied to school email addresses, though they really should consider it.
The first question Google Voice asks is to identify a location, after which it will provide a list of available numbers. Select any one. The next step is to verify it with a cell phone number, so that calls can be routed and flagged to this device. Calls will come to this device, but are masked with the Google Voice phone number. (Yes, this is one way that spammers do their thing.) After verifying, Google Voice calls with this message:
Welcome to Google Voice. Google Voice gives you a single phone number that rings all of your phones, saves your voicemail online, and transcribes your voicemail to text. Other cool features include the ability to listen in on messages while they’re being left, block unwanted callers, and make cheap international calls. We hope you enjoy using Google Voice.
Documentation
“Saves your voicemail online” — Isn’t that a nice feature? With Google-based school accounts, there is no reason not to save everything. In this case, the same applies. For whatever reason, allegations can be made about interactions with students. Google Voice can save every voicemail for the just-in-case that teachers never want to think about. The fact that it can be set to go to voicemail also allows educators to create reasonable boundaries when they will accept calls as a teacher, which is not 2:00 AM when a student has a late-night question or a parent is awake and sends a text.
“Transcribes your voicemail to text” — For the same reasons, this automated feature has significant benefits for teacher users who might need to provide documentation to administration about an interaction with a student or their family. Of course, some transcriptions are flawed in voice recognition, so having the audio available, as well, is handy.
Keep School “school”
Using a school phone number isn’t very effective for teachers. Those who do use the school number often just need something to fill a box, but never expect to get calls to that number. They go to the main office. In essence, Google Voice works the same way. Users get notifications, just like they would from the office.
There is an automatic level of priority that accompanies school communications. During school hours or while on school business, it is a high level of priority. After contracted hours, it should reasonably change. With everything coming to one phone number, that is challenging. While it is possible to look at the source and not answer it, that creates an additional task to attend to it the next school day. However, there is a need to look back and find it among personal communications when the school day rolls around. This sets users up for unintended lapses. If it’s all in one channel — a professional voiceover phone number like Google Voice — things are easy to find.
Keep Personal “personal”
Although sometimes it is an annoyance to be able to access school from anywhere, it can also be a convenience. It gives the teacher control to respond or not, but at least to provide a message capture which cannot interrupt personal time.
Personal emails go to a personal account, not to the school-established account (or at least they should). If personal information is on a school account, teachers who separate from the school will lose access to their personal information in the process. That is a risk. In addition, everything that is “owned” by that source is their property, which includes any email message sent to a school email.
Applying the Use Cases
- Field trips – students with cell phones on school trips can use the number so that they are never entirely lost if something goes awry
- Club management – Students enrolled in clubs can get reminder texts and respond (and the notifications for those can be muted when the students get chatty or quippy, so teachers can do moderation at intervals with a cell phone blowing up every thirty seconds)
- Sports teams – Much like clubs, notifications can occur in the venue students use most — texting.
- Student travel – In these cases, 24/7 notifications are great, but if teacher give their real cell numbers in these situations, the students also have them the following week when back at school. Students lack the boundaries to know when it is OK to use privileged information like a teacher’s number.
- Parent messaging – That’s a judgment call. In secondary education, it isn’t a good practice. There might be uses for it in an elementary context when teachers have a smaller set of parents with whom to coordinate. Remind (remind.com) is a better platform for that purpose, as it can be set for one-way communication and does not disclose the contact information for other members in the group.
Risk-Reward
Any time teachers communicate with students outside of school, there are high risks of allegations of inappropriate contact or lapses in boundaries. Google Voice helps teachers to add a layer of insulation in difficult times and a space which is intentionally for mobile school communications, so that the phone number for the personal device is ALWAYS personal. Crossing lines creates risk. Don’t be the topic of tomorrow’s critical news story by giving your personal phone number to students or parents.
Teacher Takeaways
Sharing personal information (like a phone number) with students creates the risk of muted boundaries between teachers and students or parents. Google Voice helps to maintain communication and privacy.
EmpowerED 