Since 2003, Registered Sex Offenders must live 1,000 feet away from a nearby school or park, before then, it was a mere 100 yards away. Although, let's be honest, a thousand feet is a fairly short distance away.
"That's pretty close to a school!" exclaims Debra Fernandez, when she heard that stat.
"That scares me," admits Janie Sharpe, a grandmother waiting to pick up her granddaughter at Mann Middle School.
These parents and grandparents, say their student's safety is a high priority that stays on their mind.
"I think about my child's safety, here at school, a lot. That's why I have such a great job that I can come and pick him up," says Fernandez.
Which is why they were surprised to learn that ten Registered Sex Offenders live within a half mile from Mann Middle School.
"Still that's too close," says Sharpe.
However, that number gets larger at other Abilene ISD schools, there are 17 near Jefferson Middle School, and 25 that live a half mile away from Fannin Elementary. While that may sound alarming, there are people that are constantly looking out for your kid.
"We are always monitoring people coming on, visitors coming on, or people that are on campus that shouldn't be there," points out Steve Post with AISD. He adds that the school district, keeps the schools informed about offenders that move near their school. He even points out that the schools have found a great system to monitor who is coming into the building. in V-soft. "They [visitors] are required to scan their driver's license, and it only goes through a database of Sex Offenders."
Mike Wolfe, Director of the Community Supervision and Corrections Department, says they constantly watch who is living where. "We have software that allows us to input the offenders address, and we already have the schools in there, it then brings it up on mapping. It then gauges the distance on that to make sure we're in compliance."
Mike and I even looked through roughly ten cases, checking the distance to see if his offenders were compliant. Everyone of them checked out. While you may not have access to his software, you can find a similar version on-line at www.familywatchdog.us.
