Now, I am Facebook friends with 11 former students. I accepted these online friendship requests (that they sent, not me) after they graduated from high school. All of these former students are in their early twenties or thirties now. These are students with whom I had a stronger mentor-mentee bond. I continue to get plenty of former students request me as a friend but I click “Not Now.” Almost none of my current students send me requests. I’ve done a good job, I think, of setting teacher-student boundaries.
The Chicago Public Schools official