Sex-offender parents targeted

Sex-offender parents can no longer just "show up" under a draft policy the Granite Board of Education preliminarily approved Tuesday.

Rather, parents on the Utah Sex Offender Registry would have to make appointments before coming to school. And their attendance at extracurricular activities would be regulated by the principal.

"We aren't telling people they can't come to school," said Martin Bates, attorney and assistant to the Granite superintendent. "What we're trying to do with the policy is to balance a parent's ability to participate meaningfully in their child's education against minimizing access to other people's children."

The board unanimously approved the proposal, which Bates said codifies some existing practice, on the first of three readings.

"I think it is well done," president Patricia Sandstrom said.

The policy would apply only to parents — not everyone on the registry. So, conceivably, other registered sex offenders could come and go to football games or track meets without restriction. It also does not encompass juvenile sex offenders — the subject of a proposed crackdown bill in Texas; Bates says they are educated in alternative settings in Utah.

"This policy is dealing with foreseeable issues," Bates said. "And it's reasonable and foreseeable ... (that sex offenders) want to participate in their child's education, and we are supportive of that. However, we want to regulate to some degree their access to other people's children."

Utah Department of Corrections officials estimate about 200 convicted sex offenders live within 1,000 feet of a school in Salt Lake County alone.

More than half of the crimes that can land a person on the sex offender registry pertain to children, Bates said.

But about 40 percent of those on the registry are not pedophiles, Utah Department of Corrections spokesman Jack Ford said.

The issue is hot nationally. And five bill requests are listed on the Utah Legislature's Web site.

Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper, for instance, earlier this fall indicated he wants to restrict registered sex offenders from living within a 500-foot "buffer zone" of schools, parks and other areas.

Twelve states have similar laws. And the Fargo, N.D., school board earlier this month banned adult sex offenders from school property altogether, The Associated Press reported.