When school is home and home is school, which rules prevail?

CHICAGO (AP) — Toys that look like weapons. Barefoot students. Disruptive imagery in the background. Pets roaming the room. All a clear violation of rules inside most American classrooms. But that was when most American students were actually inside schools.

How do standards like these translate when everyone is logging on from home? Schools are struggling to figure it out this fall — yet another adaptation demanded of educators during the coronavirus pandemic.

In the learn-from-home world, teachers and experts can easily imagine the friction of extending regular classroom discipline into young people's previously private spaces.

Can students have posters visible in the background backing social or political movements that others disagree with or find racist? Can they wear clothes at home that are banned from classrooms? How can a teacher respond when a student says or does something that the instructor deems rude, offensive or threatening?

Weeks into the fall semester, a growing number of school officials are navigating those grey areas.

In Colorado, Maryland and Pennsylvania, school administrators asked police to investigate separate incidents of toy guns, BB guns and a suspected rifle visible on video feeds from students’ homes. The actions raised complaints that they had overreacted to something that didn't threaten either those students or their classmates.

There's more. A Florida school district promised an investigation of an apparent high school student shouting racial slurs over a virtual class session. A Texas teacher was put on leave after parents noticed her virtual classroom is decorated with (virtual) posters backing LGBTQ rights and the Black Lives Matter movement.

“So many of our legal standards for speech at school are based on the notion...