CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) -
Cyberbullying isn't just for teenagers anymore. Teachers in North Carolina are facing an onslaught of bullying online, but a new state law is working to combat that.
According to the Wall Street Journal, North Carolina is the first state to make it illegal for students to "intimidate or torment" teachers online or build fake profiles or websites to damage employees' reputations.
The new law, North Carolina Senate Bill 707, commonly known as the School Violence Prevention Act, was passed just months ago and signed into law in July by Gov Bev Perdue.
It added protections for teachers, as well as students, after the Classroom Teachers Association of North Carolina lobbied for teachers to be included.
According to Education Week, Judy Kidd, the association's president and a high-school teacher with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, explained that the union had been receiving complaints about students cyberbullying teachers.
In one incident, Kidd told Education Week, a middle school student sent "sexually explicit emails" about a teacher to other students. Another incident involved a student posting false allegations about having been groped by her instructor.
According to TIME magazine, Pennsylvania-based high school senior, created a Myspace profile in 2005 and impersonated the head his school. The principal found the experience "demoralizing."
The student was found guilty of violating the school's disciplinary code and spent the year in the Alternative Education Program.
According to a 2011 study in the Norton Online Family Report, nearly 62% of kids across the world said that they have had a negative experience while online.
Nearly 4 in 10 (39%), however, have had a serious negative experience online, such as receiving inappropriate pictures from strangers, being bullied or becoming the victim of cybercrime.
One of the more shocking examples of using social networks for bad behavior is cyberbaiting, where students first irritate or bait a teacher until he or she cracks, filming the incident on their mobile device so they can post the footage online, embarrassing the teacher and the school.
One in five teachers has personally experienced or knows another teacher who has experienced this phenomenon.
Nearly two-thirds of teachers say being friends with students on social networks exposes them to risks. Still, 34 percent continue to "friend" their students.
"It became apparent that we had to get some kind of protection," Kidd told Education Week.
Students found guilty under the law could face a fine of up to $1,000, transfer to another school and jail time if found guilty.
