Law: Teachers must be told if sex offenders are in class

SEATTLE — If the young man your daughter sits next to in social studies happens to be a registered sex offender, that fact is no longer a secret at Washington public schools, thanks to a new law that took effect this month.

Although some school districts, like Spokane and Seattle, have been notifying teachers about sex offenders in their classrooms, the new juvenile-sex-offender notification law now makes it mandatory for all districts.

The old law required law-enforcement officials to notify school districts when a juvenile sex offender enrolled in one of their schools. The districts were then supposed to notify the schools, which could notify the teachers, but some criminal cases have made it clear this wasn't always happening.

Rep. Kirk Pearson, R-Monroe, said he was inspired to propose the new law by a case in Snohomish County five years ago in which a high-school girl was raped by a fellow student who was a registered sex offender. Their teachers did not know of his criminal history, Pearson said.

"This is something I'd never want to see happen again in our schools," he said.

When he first wrote the juvenile-sex-offender notification bill in 2003, it included a way for parents to find out about sex offenders in the classroom. The bill hit a roadblock until the additional requirement of parental notification was removed.

Linda Hanson, president of the state Parent Teacher Association, said the idea of adding parents to the notification list will be discussed when her organization holds its legislative assembly this fall.

Hanson said she wasn't sure how the membership would feel about another change in the law. Pearson said he would be happy to see that idea have another chance in the Legislature.

A total of 643 juvenile sex offenders were registered with the State Patrol as of Sept. 5, but only a fraction of them attend school, education officials said.

"By the time juveniles are Level 2 or Level 3 sex offenders, a lot of them are non-attenders. They are out of the school system," said Rob Alderson, security supervisor for Spokane Public Schools.

Level 2 offenders pose a moderate risk of reoffending; Level 3 offenders pose a high risk of reoffending.

He said these students usually have other problems that keep them out of school and he speculated that the same thing was true statewide.

Alderson said his district doesn't have many Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders enrolled — just a few each year. And the district already had a policy in place that is very similar to the new state law, thanks in part to pressure from a strong teachers union, Alderson said.

Other school districts are learning as they go this year, with some help from state education officials.

The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction is working with law enforcement and educators from around the state to create model policies for handling in-school notification, keeping both student safety and the needs of the offending students in mind.

"It's a very complicated task," said Kathleen Sande, who is the supervisor for education at the state juvenile-detention facilities and has been taking calls at the state education office concerning the new law.

School officials need to make sure teachers are notified, while making sure they know how to treat the information once they have it, Sande said. The committee creating the model policy may ask the Legislature for money to train the principals and the teachers.

Charles Hasse, president of the Washington Education Association, expressed concern that the new system of notifying principals instead of school districts may not have better results.

"We do think that educators should be notified if they have students who are sex offenders," Hasse said. "We're not persuaded that the change in the law will do a better job of ensuring that happens."