GWINN -- Teachers and students communicating on Facebook.  It's a hot topic on our own TV6 fan page.  Viewers want to know if this kind of interaction is appropriate and if U.P. schools have Facebook policies.

Across the country, this has become a very controversial topic.  The state of Missouri actually passed a law this summer that was later repealed that banned teachers from 'friend'ing their students.

Here in the U.P., it seems the jury is still out on whether teacher-student Facebook interaction is appropriate.

"No staff member shall associate with students at any time in a manner which gives the appearance of impropriety," read Gwinn Superintendent Michael Maino off of the Gwinn school policy handbook.  "That says it right there:  you have to be careful about what you allow students to become a part of."

At Gwinn Community Schools, it's unlikely you'll find students and teachers communicating on Facebook; instead they're using a system called "Moodle," the school's server that connects students and teachers electronically.

For now they say that's all they need, and it draws a clear line between professional and the social.  Some of our Facebook fans say that's vital.

Jenny Engstrom writes:  "Teachers need to set boundaries, Facebook is not the place for students and teachers to communicate."

"If a teacher's not careful with the way they use social networking sites, they can fall into things where they have inappropriate relationships with students because of photos that are put on there, because of conversations that are put on there," Maino said.

For that reason, Gwinn strongly discourages any kind of teacher-student Facebook interaction.

But the message is different at the NICE Community Schools.  They boast a district fan page of almost 1,500 fans and say they believe it's the quickest and most effective way to get information out. They encourage teachers to make fan pages of their own.

While they do believe it's important to maintain a distinct line between teacher and friend, they haven't seen any problems yet.

"Everything that I've received has been positive," says Superintendent Michael Haynes.  "The district page...we monitor it.  People will ask a question and within, sometimes, even after a few minutes, somebody out there is answering the question."

That makes sense to some of our Facebook fans.

Mikey N Sue smart writes:  "If boundaries are already in place in a classroom, why wouldn't they also be on Facebook?  In reality, there'd be even closer monitoring going on in there."

None of the schools we were able to contact have 'social networking policies' in place at this time.  However, some are currently constructing policies and others say they believe specific policies will be instituted in the near future.

You can check out NICE Community School's Facebook page here.