News and Information

Technology fingers sex offenders as they enter school
Board & Administrator Magazine, April 2006 Issue

Every community has them: registered sex offenders who live and work in the school district. You now your district’s parents won’t abide RSOs visiting schools without school officials being aware of their presence.

Students’ safety should be at the top of any school board’s priorities. As states enact laws that ban registered sex offenders from living, working or loitering within safety perimeters surrounding schools, districts will need to be proactive in meeting the laws’ requirements.

Allan Measom, president and CEO of Raptor Technologies Inc., in Houston, says he is shocked by how many convicted sex offenders regularly enter schools to visit their children or stepchildren.

According to Raptor Technologies data, up to 73 percent of registered sex offenders identified by the company’s visitor-management software (V-soft) at Texas schools have been convicted of crimes against children. They are often parents or guardians of kids, Measom says. “That registered sex offender might be the uncle who stops by the school to pick up a nephew,” he says.

Raptor Technology’s Web-based V-soft screens visitors to schools and volunteers against 48 states’ sex offender databases. Missouri and Hawaii are the two states not currently covered by V-soft.

V-soft uses an optical reader stationed at a school’s check-in area to scan the front of a visitor’s driver’s license and compares the data to sex offender databases, Measom says. If the school visitor is a sex offender, a picture of the individual will pop up on the computer screen. “If that picture matches the visitor, the staff member operating the system can text message school law enforcement or an dministrator and ask the visitor to have a seat,” Measom says.

Assistant Superintendent Robert Richter of Pearland (Texas) Independent School District says it took two days to install the Raptor system in the district’s schools, and that the system was up and running immediately. “Our receptionists take a visitor’s driver’s license and run it through the optical reader,” he says.

“In 10 to 20 seconds, they have a visitor’s pass printed.”

The pass includes the visitor’s picture and indicates his destination. “This allows school personnel to verify that a person visiting the school has gone through proper procedures, and that the visitor is in the appropriate area of the building,” Richter says.

When the Raptor system alerts school staff that a visitor is an RSO, the district follows its administrative procedures (see page 8).

“Developing these administrative guidelines is the only adjustment the district has made in administrative procedures or board policy for the Raptor system,” Richter says.

Raptor Technologies Inc. sells V-soft at a per-school charge of $1,500, and an annual per-school subscription fee of $432. For more information, visit www.raptorware.com.

Registered sex offenders logged in Texas schools

The following statistics about registered sex offenders identified as visiting Texas schools were collected using Raptor Technologies’ V-soft. The crimes committed and victim(s) age data come from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

• Of the RSOs logged with V-soft in Texas schools, 73% committed sexual crimes against children.
• The average age of the victim was 11.
• Most of the RSOs logged were parents/guardians of a student at that school.
• Many of these parents/guardians visit their children’s school on a regular basis.

Crimes committed

• Aggravated sexual assault of a child: 23%.
• Sexual assault of a child: 20%.
• Indecency with a child—sexual contact: 25%.
• Indecency with a child—by exposure: 5%.
• Other crimes (with adult or child): 27%.

The Average victim’s age

• Aggravated sexual assault of a child: 11.
• Sexual assault of a child: 13.
• Indecency with a child—sexual contact: 11.
• Indecency with a child—by exposure: 9.
• Other crimes (with adult or child): 19.

Source: Allan Measom, president and CEO, Raptor Technologies Inc., Houston.

Administrative guidelines for when a sex offender is identified

Topic: Sex offender; procedures to follow when individual is identified using Raptor system.

Reference or contact: assistant superintendent for student services.

The following is the procedure to follow when a parent/guardian is identified as a registered sex offender using the Raptor system:

1. Clerical staff should press the “yes” button on system.
2. Clerical staff asks the person to remain in reception area.
3. Building administrator is notified immediately.
4. Supervising executive director is notified immediately.
5. Notify school resource officer, DARE officer or call the proper department for your location below:
   • Pearland Police Department
   • Brookside Police Department
   • Brazoria County Sheriff’s Department
6. Do not allow person to leave the reception area without escort by school personnel.
7. Sex offender asking to have lunch with his child is not to go to the cafeteria. Parent who is the registered sex offender may take his child off campus for the lunch period if parental rights have not been terminated. Make certain parental rights have not been removed. If you are unable to verify this, the child is not to be taken from campus.

Parental rights of a registered sex offender

1. Parent has the right to receive non-personal information about his child and progress of the child. (Do not release address or phone number.)

Procedures to follow when registered sex offender is not parent and asks to see a child or take a child out of school (applies to grandparent, uncle, aunt, sibling, relative, friend).

1. Under no circumstances is a child to be released or allowed to talk to a registered sex offender who is not the parent/guardian of the child.
2. Parent is to be notified that the person came to school to visit or pick up child.
3. Parent cannot give permission for a registered sex offender to take a student off campus.

Preventive measures to be taken by school district and law enforcement.

1. Law enforcement will supply a list of registered sex offenders to Pearland ISD, and Pearland ISD will match addresses to current students.
2. 2. Pearland ISD will send a letter to the registered sex offender instructing him to notify the school of his arrival time prior to going to the campus.

Source: Assistant Superintendent Robert Richter, Pearland (Texas) Independent School District.