The Missouri senate was called into special session by Gov. Jay Nixon to rescind, not revise, some of the original language in Senate Bill 54.

“Legislature on the senate side wants to change the language,” Missouri School Boards Association spokesman Brent Ghan said. “We’re fine with either one.”

The change in language to the bill requires school districts to have some model in place with regards to staff employee-student interaction through social media. The previous language banned teachers and students from exclusive social media interaction.

Missouri State Teachers Association spokesman Todd Fuller said the language of the bill has been changed to allow school districts to make their own policies on how to handle student-teacher social media contact. Fuller said MSTA will not drop its lawsuit until the bill revision passes and Nixon signs off on it.

When MSTA won the injunction against SB54 in late August, Cole County Circuit Judge John Beetem said that teachers use social media as one of their main forms of communication. Beetem said the law would limit speech and also not allow communication between family members who might be students and teachers.

There is speculation over whether the revised version of the bill can be passed, since this special session was called to “rescind” language in the bill.

“The interesting aspect from the constitutional point of view is whether or not the legislature can pass this, even though it is well beyond the call of what the Governor asked the legislature to do,” Ghan said. “Could it even pass, or would he even sign it if it passed? He has not indicated one way or another.”

Kit Crancer, Chief of Staff for Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chestefield, said his office found most school districts already had a policy regarding student-staff social media interaction.

“We clarified the language of the original law and remove ambiguity,” Crancer said. “We found a majority of school districts had a policy and wanted to keep those, now we want to ensure all districts have a policy. We wanted to expand it from teachers to all school employees.”

The MSBA already has a recommended policy in place regarding social media interaction that school districts can use for their own policies.

“Our recommended policy does set limitations between a school employee and student through electronic communication,” Ghan said. “It prevents students from having access to an employee’s social networking page. Employees cannot give access to students that is not available to the general public.”