School and law enforcement officials have told a St. Joseph man that he can't attend his son's eighth-grade graduation because he is a convicted sex offender and isn't allowed on school property.
James Jones, 36, said he may go anyway although the Buchanan County Sheriff's Department has told him he would be arrested and face up to four years in prison.
In August 2006, a state law went into effect prohibiting sex offenders from going onto school property without permission from the district superintendent.
Rather than deal with individual requests, Buchanan County superintendents said they will ban all sex offenders from their schools.
"If I start deciding which offenders can and cannot be at school, then I become the judge. And it is not my position to judge a case. The courts have already done that," said St. Joseph School District Superintendent Melody Smith. "My job is to provide the safekeeping of 11,632 students and the people who attend our events."
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