Schools should be alert for molesters

Not all registered sexual offenders are alike.

Some are horrible monsters who should never be around children. Others are individuals who made a mistake in judgment in a consensual situation and will never reoffend. All convicted sexual offenders, however, have harmed children in some way sexually and shouldn’t complain when society treats them warily.

Unfortunately, the shunning process affects innocent loved ones, too.

In Post Falls, a fifth-grade teacher lives with the knowledge that her husband has been banned from the grounds of her elementary school because he was convicted of having consensual sex with a 13-year-old 16 years ago when he was 22. A parent pulled her child from class after finding a photo of the teacher’s husband in Idaho’s sex offender registry. As a result, the registered offender feels sorry for himself and wonders how long he has to pay for his crime.

In a time when family friends, relatives and neighbors commit egregious sexual crimes against children, the Post Falls offender shouldn’t expect worried parents to sympathize with his predicament. Ponderosa Elementary reacted appropriately by contacting police after fielding parental concerns about the man, then taking steps to ensure he was never alone with children on campus, and finally banning him altogether. And the school was wise to follow up by sending notes home to dispel rumors and to tell parents that a “low-level sex offender” was on campus last year but students weren’t jeopardized.

Under laws in Idaho and Washington, the Post Falls man has access to school grounds, although, in Idaho, he’d be banned from entering the premises of a home day care or child care facility. Some might advocate for extending the ban to school grounds. But that would complicate the lives of families in which a parent also is a registered sex offender. In such situations, a ban would prevent the suspect parent from picking his child up from school or tending to his child in a health emergency.

School districts can deal with the problem better by conducting thorough background checks of volunteers, mentors and other individuals who work directly with children, as Spokane Public Schools do, and by purchasing relatively inexpensive special software that enables schools to quickly check if a visitor is on a sex offender registry. Above all, schools should be careful not to allow visitors to be alone with children on their grounds.

A situation like the one in Post Falls involving the teacher’s husband triggers an emotional reaction. But parents and schools should realize that children can face greater danger from faculty and staff, too. Earlier this year, revelations of a sexual relationship between Ferris High School teacher Sayeed X and an underage student was a reminder of the threat posed by an occasional aberrant teacher, even when background checks are part of the hiring process. Just the same, the backgrounds of new teachers and staff should be checked as closely as possible.

Children can’t be protected totally from the sexual predators. But all reasonable steps must be taken to reduce the danger they face.