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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

School Security Policy Is Obnoxious, Parents Say

AUSTIN (CN) - An Austin school district enforces an unconstitutional security system that bars parents from attending more than two events on campus unless they submit to an intrusive criminal background check to see whether they are sex offenders, parents claim in Travis County Court.

Parents sued Lake Travis Independent School District and Bee Cave Elementary School Principal Janie Braxdale. They say the school district began using the "Raptor Visitor Management System" 2006 without notice. It requires that parents visiting the campus submit their driver's licenses for electronic scanning and transmission to Raptor Technologies, which checks the names against 49 states' sex offender registries.

Parents who refuse to submit to the allegedly unconstitutional intrusion get two visits to campus and that's all, the parents say. But people who are sex offenders can visit campus more than twice if they are escorted, according to the complaint.

The plaintiffs say this system prevents them from sharing in their children's school activities, and is "unnecessary and mean spirited ... outrageous and tremendously hurtful" to parents and children.

The mother says she was barred from two teacher conferences because she would not submit to the system. She points out that, with three children in school, the system bars her from attending virtually all her kids' school events, unless she submits to the intrusion. She says she found the system so obnoxious she withdrew all her children from Bee Cave Elementary and suffered depression and other problems afterward.

They say the policy violates the Texas Education Code, and the Texas and U.S. Constitutions.

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