News and Information

Mistake sends 3 sex offenders to school
A temporary worker agency had assigned them to Challenger K-8 School of Science and Mathematics, a district official says.
ABHI RAGHUNATHAN and EDDY RAMIREZ, August 5, 2005

SPRING HILL - Hundreds of eager parents and students will get their first look inside Challenger K-8 School of Science and Mathematics during an open house this morning.

But preparations for the grand event had to overcome a hurdle Thursday morning. A temporary worker agency mistakenly sent three sex offenders to the school to help get it ready before today's open house, district safety and security director Barry Crowley said.

The three sex offenders were sent by Labor Finders, Crowley said, and were part of a bigger group that performed such last-minute chores as sweeping floors and rearranging furniture. Crowley said the workers were stopped at the school's front office by people who recognized their faces from photos of sex offenders that the Hernando County Sheriff's Office sends out to schools.

The three offenders were asked to leave the campus, Crowley said, and did so without incident. It is unclear if they would have been working during today's open house. A call to the Brooksville office of Labor Finders on Thursday afternoon was answered by a woman who said, "We have no comment," and then hung up.

According to its Web site, Labor Finders, based in Palm Beach Gardens, offers maintenance technicians, electricians, carpenters, welders and other types of temporary workers.

Crowley said the district's contract with Labor Finders requires the company to perform background checks on the employees it sends to school sites. He said that Labor Finders officials had assured him that the company had made a mistake, but promised to do background checks on people it sends to Hernando schools in the future.

Crowley said the district does not plan to make any changes to its contract with Labor Finders because the Thursday incident was an isolated one. But he did stress that the incident highlighted the need to improve the security measures at the county's schools.

In March, after the kidnapping and slaying of Jessica Lunsford in Citrus County, district officials began looking at their security practices. The suspect, John Couey, was a registered sexual offender who worked as a laborer for a time at the Citrus elementary school that Jessica attended.

Last week, School Board members approved buying a computer software program that will enable schools to instantly screen visitors, volunteers and outside workers. Crowley expects to install the V.Soft system in all county schools by the end of August.

When the software system is in place, school visitors will have to swipe their driver's license or valid photo ID through an optical scanner, which can read the name, date of birth, address and picture and match the data through the Internet with information on sex offenders from 42 states.

Abhi Raghunathan can be reached at araghunathan@sptimes.com or 352 848-1431.