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Board moves to comply with new state law, designates Remind, ClassDojo, Apogee and Google Suite as district traceable communication systems
Summary
Following review of KSBA policy update 48 and recent state legislation (including Senate Bill 181 and provisions in House Bill 208), the Muhlenberg County Board of Education approved the first reading of the KSBA update and designated specific platforms as the district's traceable communication systems.
The Muhlenberg County Board of Education approved the first reading of the KSBA policy update number 48 and designated a set of district-approved "traceable communication systems" to satisfy new state restrictions on staff and volunteer electronic communications with students.
Superintendent and staff framed the policy changes as implementation of state law: Senate Bill 181 (effective June 27) and related statute KRS 160.145 require that district employees and volunteers use board-designated platforms when communicating electronically with students, and prohibit unauthorized personal messaging except in narrowly defined circumstances. The district will notify families about the systems and the limited exceptions that state law allows.
At the meeting staff recommended, and the board approved, the following platforms as traceable systems: Remind, Apogee, ClassDojo and the district Google Suite (district Gmail, Google Classroom and other G Suite tools). Staff said these platforms already are in use in the district and that designation allows the district to produce logs of communications if parents request them.
Board discussion referenced several legal clarifications provided in the KSBA update: a required daily moment of silence (policy 8.1351) set at one to two minutes during the first period; House Bill 208's prohibition on student personal telecommunication device use during instructional time except for emergency or specific teacher-directed instructional purposes; and the traceable communication rules (policy 8.2424) that limit personal, staff-to-student messaging outside approved systems.
Under the new rules staff and volunteers are not allowed to use personal texting, social media, or unauthorized apps to communicate with students outside immediate family members (the statute's definition of family is limited to parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, brother and sister according to staff explanation). The district will publish a parent consent mechanism for certain limited communications but staff noted the statute narrows who may be designated in such consents and excludes mass-group communications for clubs and extracurricular activities.
The board voted to designate the listed platforms by voice vote; staff will publish the approved platform list and make instructions and logs available to families as required by state law.
