Should teachers be banned from interacting with students via social networking sites?

My brother is a teacher and a coach at a high school. He teaches TV production so the kids make their own videos and social media is a great way to share their work.

Social media is also a great way to promote high school sports. Videos and pictures and updates of scores and rankings are helpful.

With that said, I don't think teachers should be using social media to contact students, or vice versa, on a personal level. There was a local teacher who had a student who was having a rough time at home and was contemplating suicide. They communicated through emails, and not social media. The child's mother found the emails and went to the school board.

Proper procedure was for the teacher to report the student to social services and have a mental health professional contact the student and his family. Even though there wasn't anything in the emails that was inapproriate, the teacher lost his job because he did not report the student. He did it the way he did to protect the student from his mother. She would have blocked anyone from helping him. The fact she had the teacher fired after finding the emails instead of getting her son any help backs that thought up.

The teacher is now working for a private school. 

I think that the school should have 'private' websites where students and teachers can communicate, but they should not use social media.  A few kids at my school follow teachers on Facebook, which I don't think it is appropriate, but it doesn't bother me.  The teacher can block the student if they need to, and I know fit a fact that it is not 'personal,' per se.  EQ has websites that only students and teachers can use to communicate, and I think that is an appropriate way of communicating.

Maybe. To be perfectly honest, I thought they already were.