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School district's dumb decision© St. Petersburg Times published March 21, 2002 Hillsborough County school officials are looking for a policy when common sense would do. Last month, the school district allowed a man they knew to be a registered sex offender to chaperone students on an overnight trip. Wharton High School administrators knew about the criminal record and so did the school district's attorney. Removing him from campus should have been a no-brainer. This is not, as the district now wants the public to believe, about the rights of school volunteers, or a question of whether the schools can afford to conduct criminal background checks. His record was known, and barring sex offenders from acting as chaperones hardly seems unreasonable. He's gone now, but it should have been an easier call for the district to put students first.
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From the Times Opinion page |
