Eastern Shore schools improve sex offender screening

SALISBURY, Md. -- Want to visit a Wicomico County public school? Bring your license.

Wicomico County Public Schools have been testing a PassagePoint system, which scans the drivers licenses of day visitors to the schools, in the central office and at Wicomico High School, said Andrew Turner, coordinator of safe schools.

Within a matter of seconds, the system can alert if there's a registered sex offender match. If someone doesn't have a license, a name and date of birth can be used to run the check.

Turner said it would cost about $42,000 to install the system in all of the county's schools. "We plan to have them in all of our schools by the end of March," Turner said.

Wicomico's schools join more than 500 schools using the PassagePoint EDU system across the country, according to Debbie Pendleton, vice president of sales and marketing for STOPware Inc., which makes the systems. There's one other school in Maryland – Oxon Hill High School, not far from Washington D.C. – using PassagePoint EDU, Pendleton said.

Stephanie Underwood, the parent of three students in the Wicomico school system, said she would never want someone on the sex offender registry to have access to her children.

"I think it's a great idea," she said.

The addition of the PassagePoint system comes after the adoption in January of an official visitor policy for all county schools, part of which reads, "All visitors will be checked against the current sex offender registry before a visitor pass is issued upon sign-in at the WCPS facility."

In past years, people unfamiliar to school staff members have had to show an ID and sign in to pick up a student, according to school system spokeswoman Tracy Sahler.

Before the installation of the PassagePoint system, office staff checked a regularly updated notebook of sex offenders if someone seemed to be suspicious, Turner said. With the new system, the driver's license swipe will come up with information automatically, he said.

Sex offenders who have written permission to visit a school will be accompanied at all times by a school staff member, according to the policy. Anyone showing up without permission to be there will be made to leave and law enforcement will be contacted, the policy states.

Turner believes most registered sex offenders know they aren't supposed to be at schools. Just knowing this system exists could discourage them not to come to the schools. "It has been an effective deterrent," he said.

Wicomico school board member Kim Hudson voted for approval of the visitor policy when it was considered on Jan. 13.

Hudson, who has two children in the school system, said safety of students is a key consideration, and PassagePoint will help expand on that without being inconvenient for visitors.

"It's just adding another layer of protection," she said.