SB 181 is terrible for our kids! Some context.. I’ve read the “I don’t message kids and never have so it doesn’t affect me..” False, you don’t understand the platforms, restrictions, and promoting kids if you make this comment. A decade ago at PHS we found a niche on Twitter that allowed us to market ultra talented high school football players at our tiny 1A school like never before. If coaches weren’t allowed to tag, like and retweet, we probably never produce an Army All-American and KY Mr Football. We had D1s from all over the country flying in because of our presence on Twitter(X). We created quality content, and as a staff had a plan to make it go by tagging etc, common practice in 2025! Promoting high school kids got even more difficult after the portal. Awards are also about exposure and public interactions are critical. Those actions are now an infraction and require you to be reported to EPSB. In east Kentucky an athlete is already behind the 8 ball, it takes twice the effort to promote a high level D1 athlete from Eastern KY, just the facts. Taking an educator/coaches abilities to promote away has a direct negative affect on our youth. Why aren’t more administrators speaking up? Recruiting traffic has since moved to other platforms. Take for instance Instagram or Facebook, if you have a team account and you post a story and tag a kid from a morning workout or great play, it generates a private message with the story to said tagged kid. I can show you evidence of power 4 schools watching stories etc regularly. Again, an infraction now requiring you to be reported to EPSB. No other state has a rule like this. I completely understand the principle of outlawing private messages, conversations should NEVER take place between professionals and students in private messenger on social media. In this case we took a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and those who passed this legislation obviously have a limited understanding of these platforms and how they work. In a world evolving on social media, you just took a critical support role away with one broad stroke of a brush. Will SB 181 stop those with evil intentions from contacting kids? NO. The communication will evolve to some other encrypted platform or media, making it even more difficult to track, thats how this works. Rules don’t stop rule breakers, just ask law enforcement. Now if you stiffen the penalty for those caught “grooming” kids, you can make some headway. Stiffen the penalties for coworkers who don’t report inappropriate relationships. Hold parents/guardians accountable for not properly monitoring kids interactions on social media. Those adults who pay for the device have some responsibility here too. You can’t put all of this responsibility solely on coaches/educators, you won’t fix the problem. The goal here is to fix the problem, right? In my situation, I have a positive presence with outdoors in East KY. I started and run a nonprofit Anglers For Improving Opportunities, kids regularly send me photos to post on our page. My presence has been a positive in introducing kids to the outdoors. (You would be amazed at the level of largemouth bass genetics conversations that I have in my classroom. 😂 ) Why would you take away positive interactions there? This is only one example. Contact legislators today! We have to make some modifications to this terrible bill, it does more harm than good to our youth and won’t actually address the problem. It only pushes this activity deeper in the sewers where it is tougher to track. What say you?