Problem Solvers: New legislation would notify schools of level 1 and 2 sex offenders visiting school

Update: Adding video, comments from Bend La-Pine superintendent, Rep. Levy, new info)

SALEM, Ore. (KTVZ) -- The Oregon House Committee on Judiciary held the first hearing Monday on legislation introduced by Rep. Emerson Levy, D-Bend, to keep more sex offenders out of schools - a bill prompted by an incident at a Bend school nearly three years ago. 

HB 3839 directs Oregon State Police to ensure that Level 1 and Level 2 sex offender information is available to school districts and entities providing school visitor management services. 

"We don't have access to the ones and twos or the unclassified. And so, class means that the state has not classed those individuals yet, and we have about 14,000 people in the state that have not been classed," Rep. Levy told KTVZ News Wednesday.

"When we drop our kids off at school, we want to know that they're safe," she said. "And I think it's really brave of the Bend-La Pine School District to say, 'Hey, we have discovered a loophole in our system where people who are unsafe can exploit this loophole - and let's fix it.'"

"And I'm really just proud to be a partner with that and just make sure as a mom and as a legislator that our kids are safe and that people who are unsafe don't have access to our children," Levy added.

In 2022, a convicted child sex offender got past a secure door and into Bend's High Desert Middle School because the school didn’t have access to this crucial information, the lawmaker said. 

“The need for this bill became apparent when we experienced a child sex offender entering a school in my district, ” Levy said. “Bend La-Pine Superintendent Dr. Steve Cook and I have been working on this legislation to ensure that a situation like this never happens again.”

Superintendent Cook joined Levy in giving testimony at Monday's hearing. 

"Oregon leads the nation in registered sex offenders per capita," Cook told the Problem Solvers. "We are No. 1 in the country. And so for us, this felt like a very compelling reason for school districts across the state of Oregon to be able to access that."

As of early this year, thousands of sex offenders were still waiting for their risk assessment. There are three categories of risk, based on severity of the crime and the likelihood to commit another crime. Around 5% of registered offenders are Level 3, or the highest risk, meaning the remaining 95% could slip through the doors of Oregon schools.

Cook said, "It only identifies those that are warranted as Level 3. And so a parent who wants to get access to their student's classroom or to be a visitor in their class, they'd see no difference than how they're currently allowing that access."

Levy said current approved screening tools can leave out thousands of registered sex offenders.

“Our children and communities deserve better. As a legislative body, we should be doing everything we can to keep our students safe,” Levy said in her public testimony, which can be found here. “This is a public safety issue, and I am committed to solving this dangerous vulnerability in our school safety protocols.”

Oregon's sex offender registry has long been criticized by legislators, as thousands of offenders are backlogged, and other than Bill 3839, there is currently legislation to aid this backlog, which the state parole office has said would require more money and more employees.

There is some opposition to the bill, as advocacy groups testified it, fearing that the release of a lower-risk list could be shared with the public, and others said it's not really needed.