As students increasingly rely on phones and tablets for classwork, many instructors are using the technology to better connect with students outside school hours.
In some cases, though, the connections cross a line from mentorship to predatory behavior.
Take, for example:
• Jake Robinson, a former McCutcheon High School teacher and assistant varsity football coach, exchanged suggestive text messages and had sexual relations with a 16-year-old student.
He began a five-year prison sentence last August for five felony counts of child seduction.
• Thomas Weeks was Frankfort High School's varsity boys basketball coach and a history teacher until his wife found he had sent inappropriate Twitter direct messages to a student.
An investigation later found Weeks had sex with the 16-year-old girl multiple times, and he was sentenced to 18 months of house arrest last October.
Indiana Department of Education data reveal the state revoked 37 teacher licenses from 2010 to 2015 for bad behavior, including inappropriate texting or communications with a student. That number doesn't include some teachers, like Robinson, who were found guilty of a crime but whose licenses still are in the process of being revoked.
In February, an investigation by the Journal & Courier and USA TODAY Network gave the state a failing grade for its practices in screening educators and exposed flaws in Indiana's system to keep dangerous teachers out of its classrooms and from moving to other schools.
An array of factors contributed to the state's poor ranking. For example, local school corporations conduct background checks on prospective teachers, but the districts don't have easy access to NASDTEC, a national clearinghouse of teacher discipline cases.
Indiana legislators then called for stricter teacher background checks and limited confidentiality agreements between teachers and school districts, which went into effect July 1.