Police & Schools Spreading The News
In April 2005, Southborough Police visited two day care facilities in town to let them know a man living just doors down from them had been arrested for exposing himself to children at a bus stop in Marlborough. Carol Willoughby, who runs Child Dynamics Family Day Care out of her home, was shocked.
"I had never seen him before, never knew he was even there," said Willoughby, who has since become something of an advocate for stricter sex offender laws. "Now my eyes are always open. If I see something strange, I'm going to call police, I'm going to question it."
Willoughby was thankful for the heads up from police. She says she still meets neighbors who weren't aware there was a convicted sex offender living on the street. That's because police departments, school administrators, and town officials have limited legal responsibility to publicize the information. Across Massachusetts, it is up to local officials to decide whether to go above and beyond what's required when a sex offender moves in to town.
The state requires police to post Level 3 offender notices in public spaces and to notify local media of an offender's presence. Departments also send copies of notices to every school in the district and many post the information on their Web sites. But many departments go above and beyond their responsibilities under the law.
"Anything we can do to protect kids from sexual predators, it is incumbent upon us to do," said Marlborough Police Chief Mark Leonard.
In Marlborough, police officers also send offender notifications to a list of places where children congregate, including the mall and Boys & Girls Club, and notify residents in a radius around where the offender lives.
In Brookline, police "try to make it as easy as possible on people" to get information on local sex offenders, said Sgt. Paul Cullinane. When a Level 3 offender moves into town, the department posts a notice on its Web site and notifies the cable access channel. Posters are hung on a bulletin board at the police station and in other public locations around town. Community outreach Sgt. Michael Raskin will often go door-to-door in the neighborhood where the offender is living to show neighbors a picture and answer questions.
"I know it seems like we're creating a panic here, but we'd rather have people err on the safe side," said Cullinane, who also conducts quarterly checks to make sure offenders are living and working where they say they are. "We're not trying to harass them but the rights of everyone come before the rights of [an offender]... The important thing is that kids are safe."
Chelmsford Police maintain a list of local daycare and recreation programs, and send a notice when Level 3 offenders move totown, according to Chief Jim Murphy. Notices are also posted in the library, supermarkets and other public spaces. The number of people requesting information on Level 2 offenders is "very minimal," Murphy said.
"It typically only happens if something big is in the news," he said. "But it's a good resource and people should take advantage of it."
Offenders in Schools
Schools are required to do background checks on all their employees, but sex offenders can slip through the cracks. Sometimes, schools contract out certain services, including bus contracts or afterschool program supervision, and do not control who is staffing them.
In 2005, a convicted sex offender was arrested in Stoughton driving a van for special needs students attending the South Shore Educational Collaborative in Hingham.
In Framingham in 2004, a charter school reported a man loitering on the school property, but did not find out until later he was a convicted sex offender.
In each of these cases, the offender had not registered, so the school would not have had any information about the offender.
Even when they have information on registered offenders in town, school districts have no legal responsibility to disseminate it, and some do not go beyond posting the notices in school offices. Others go as far as to send notices home when a sex offender moves nearby.
"It's not systemic as far as how each district operates," said Thomas Scott, director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents. Instead, most district policies are the result of discussions between a superintendent and the town's police chief, Scott said.
In Middlesex County, District Attorney Martha Coakley's office runs Project Alliance, which brings together school administrators, educators, parents, and students, together with law enforcement and social services organizations to learn about issues of safety and school policy.
"I always tell new administrators that one of the most important relationships they should establish is with their police chief," Scott said. "It's often that the police give guidance on issues like how to use sex offender information."
In Lowell, central administration makes sure each school has sex offender notification fliers that are usually posted in the main office. All the doors to the schools are locked except at arrival time, and a video camera at the main door is hooked into the office so officials can see who is ringing to get in. Visitors are also required to sign in at the main office before going anywhere else in the building.
Superintendent Karla Baehr knows the policies work, having dealt with one instance of a suspicious visitor in her six years in the post. A man was buzzed into one of Lowell's elementary schools, but did not immediately show up at the office. The principal found the man, who claimed to be a plumber there to fix something in the bathrooms, within a minute. When questioned, the man fled the school, but police found him shortly after.
Baehr said the scare prompted the district to review and reinforce their procedures. "Daily implementation was reinvigorated," said Baehr, "especially in schools where the absence of any incidents may have contributed to a certain 'complacency' or 'relaxing' of the procedures."
Most schools in Massachusetts have safety policies that include locking all school entrances once children are inside and asking visitors to ring a bell and be identified using a closed-circuit camera before entering the building. Most often it is the responsibility of the front office staff to make sure the visitor goes directly to the office to register and sometimes get a name tag.
Scott said the majority of school districts he deals with also incorporate discussions of sexual abuse with personal safety lessons as part of the health curriculum that often begins in kindergarten.
In Shrewsbury, the district-wide comprehensive health curriculum includes lessons in safety and the prevention of sexual abuse. The goal, said Sherwood Middle School Principal Dan Costello, is to "teach kids how to be safe and be aware, but not to be scared all the time."
He said the fifth and sixth graders he deals with have heard news accounts of abuse or kidnapping and sometimes bring it up during discussion periods in the classroom.
"I think it's a very important age for kids to develop their understanding about some of the risks that they face," Costello said.
The school also holds workshops and information sessions for parents, who Costello said are sometimes nervous about talking about sexual abuse. Many come to school administrators with questions or concerns.
"We're doing our best to get the information out there and to provide support for parents," Costello said.
Lil' Iguana & Other
Safety Programs
So is Jim Tomaszewski, a father of three and founder of Lil' Iguana, an organization that presents safety programs to children from 2 to 8 years old in school, at fairs or other events. The programs center on a costumed character named Lil' Iguana and his friends, who sing and dance about safety themes, including strategies to keep kids safe from abduction or molestation.
"We had to feed our children thousands of times before they learned to do it themselves. And yet we tell our children about safety once every 10 years or when something bad happens in the neighborhood." Tomaszewski explained. "It has to be done more. It has to be done in a game-like way, and it has to be done in a non-threatening way because this is touchy stuff."
Lil' Iguana's program avoids typical stranger-danger fare and instead teaches children that they always need permission from their parent or guardian when they are going somewhere with someone. Children learn to make a scene and scream for help if someone tries to abduct them in the Run, Yell and Tell program. And Harm Alarm asks kids to tell an adult when they get a funny feeling about something someone is asking them to do.
Tomaszewski knows the programs work because he hears from parents of children who survived abuse or abduction using Lil' Iguana stategies. The organization's performers have visited hundreds of schools throughout Massachusetts, but Tomaszewski knows not every child will have the opportunity to learn the lessons.
"There is a curriculum [schools] have to follow and they have to make sure there is time to do all that," he said.
Instead of special programs, some schools rely on the community safety or school resources police officer to teach children about topics of safety, and to serve as another adult that children can talk to if there is a problem.
Franklin Police Officer Jason Reilly said his department has an officer with duties in every school, and the department coordinates in-school and after-school programming, but does not teach about sexual abuse in the classroom. Instead, police hold a number of workshops or discussions aimed at parents, Reilly said.
"What we tell parents is that they're really the best source of information for
their children," he said. "They know their children, their moods, and they know when they're most likely to get their full attention."
Many districts count on police officers assigned to the schools to provide resources. Parents should check to see whether their district teaches about sexual abuse and how. If lessons are being learned in school, it is important parents reinforce those lessons at home.
Few schools avoid discussing the topic altogether because they are mandated to do a lot of other health and safety programming, and the issue of sexual abuse has the potential to be controversial. Sgt. Brad Cowen, who used to run the
Department of Correction's program for school children, remembered a lot of educators who did not want to sign up for the free program.
"There were a lot of concerns, because of the subject matter, which can be controversial," he said. "But nothing bad can come out of talking about it."
Police also say parents should not hesitate to report someone acting suspiciously as soon as they feel something is off.
"When in doubt, call the police," Leonard said.
Sarah MacDonald is a Massachusetts-based
freelance writer.
