Beginning in July, House Bill 3958 was put into effect which states that the rule for public schools is now that school personnel engaging in electronic or digital communication with a student must involve the student’s parents in the text chain or any other form of digital communication.

“It essentially labeled specific apps that can be used, so Remind is being used in the public school system right now, versus any other communication app,” Assistant Athletic Director Mandy Gerszewski said. “We, on the other hand, are allowed to use GroupMe with making sure that coaches and other adults are involved in the messages.”

Gerszewski also coaches cheer at Yukon Middle School and has experienced both sides of the rule.

“At Yukon, we are not allowed to use GroupMe; we have to use the Remind app,” Gerszewski said. “I actually prefer the GroupMe app as opposed to the Remind app,”

While Bill 3958 was passed for public schools only, the archdiocese and Bishop McGuinness already had similar rules in place.

“The archdiocese had a rule in place already, through safe and sacred, that it was a requirement for there to be more than two safe and sacred people on a text message with kids,” Principal Andrew Worthington said. “So really, what the Bill did was bring to attention that we need to be more focused on using the archdiocese guidelines more effectively because it was important to make sure that we protect children and follow through on the archdiocese and their guidelines.”

Unlike Bill 3958, the archdiocese rule states that you can text your coaches, you just have to add another safe and sacred adult on the text chain.

Junior Addison Harley says having to remember to add another coach to the text chain can be difficult sometimes.

“Personally, the rule has made it a little more complicated to get in touch with my coaches. Instead of normally texting one, I text both coaches to let them know the same information,” Harley said. “I can see why this rule is in place and how it might be beneficial to the other staff members, but when I forget to text both rather than just one coach, I receive no reply.”

This affects all extracurricular activities that involve contact with a teacher or coach.

“I didn’t even think this rule would affect me till I got an email from my vocal coach, who is also the school’s music teacher, saying we weren’t allowed to communicate with her over text anymore,” junior McKellyn Johnson said. “I also realized we wouldn’t be able to text with our speech coach anymore, which can be inconvenient especially at tournaments when not everyone is going to be able to check other communication apps all the time.”

For some sports, their ways of communicating have not been affected by the new rules.

“For volleyball we have always used GroupMe so it hasn’t changed anything in the ways of communicating with my coaches,” sophomore Ella Herrin said.