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Even after confusion ebbs, will kids be safer?

By GREG HAMILTON
Published September 2, 2005

On Thursday, the new state law calling for fingerprinting and higher-level background checks of tens of thousands of people around Florida who might come into contact with children on school campuses officially kicked in.

As expected, confusion and frustration ruled.

School districts that have been scrambling to figure out not just who will be investigated but how to go about doing it hit the artificial wall created by the state deadline.

Workers who have been on campuses for weeks and months are now being turned away. Members of the public who have become well known among school personnel after years of helping students suddenly are viewed as dangerous.

The state agency that is conducting the background checks is mired in a backlog. Referees were told they could not officiate at games because their background checks have not been completed. In one case, the ref is also a teacher who already has passed a background check - but that apparently is not good enough.

Does this mean, by the way, that parents will be barred from the bleachers or the gym until they are fingerprinted? If not, why not? Don't they have as much, or more, contact with the athletes as do the referees?

Despite being assured by top district officials that we are exempt from the Level 2 checks, two Citrus Times reporters, including Paulette Ritchie, have been blocked at schools.

Paulette, it should be noted, has been at every school in Citrus County over the last decade as a teacher, parent, volunteer, chaperone, reporter, photographer and any other role that can be imagined. She has interviewed hundreds of students and staffers. Her stories, and her photo, are prominently displayed on bulletin boards around the district.

Yet on Thursday, she was a potential menace. (The school did check her name against the state's list of sex offenders, and when she passed that test, it allowed her into the school. How kind.)

Part of this confusion is understandable. This is a new law hastily crafted after the abduction and killing of Jessica Lunsford, and there are lots of details to work out.

The legislators, who orchestrated the law did so with the best of intentions, recognize that it is not perfect and have pledged to work on it more during the next session.

Some, including state Sen. Nancy Argenziano, have gone a step further and criticized the school districts for not having dealt with these logistical problems sooner and for overreacting to the law's mandates.

She has a point. The schools could have done more to prepare for the implementation of the law.

But the district officials, vendors, volunteers and everyone else affected by the law are correct, too, in feeling confused and irate. Whether the lawmakers think those feelings are justified or not, they certainly are real and widespread.

In all likelihood, the fingerprinting and screenings will be wrapped up in the coming weeks, the backlog will wind down and the schools will return to some sort of normalcy.

Experience will answer the various questions being raised, and the districts and the state will figure out some way to share this information as well as the results of the thousands of background checks.

Still, I can't help but wonder if it really will help keep kids any safer.

I thought of this Thursday afternoon as I drove along a residential street in Crystal River and watched a school bus drop off some students. Two little girls, deep in conversation, trundled across a lawn on their way home.

The bus had long since pulled away and there were no adults nearby to collect the giggling girls. If someone were of a mind to snatch them up, there would have been no one around to interfere.

The same is true of my own neighborhood, where I pass young children standing alone at intersections every morning waiting for the bus. They might as well paint targets on their backs.

While we're busy fingerprinting referees and reporters, the molesters and predators can pick children off from these lonely bus stops any time they wish.

[Last modified September 2, 2005, 02:15:35]