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    Sex offender tries connecting with local high school

    Registered+sex+offender+Gervase+Kyle+was+warned+last+month+by+police+not+to+approach+Ventura+campuses+after+trying+to+arrange+meetings+for+Boost+Ur+School.+Screenshot+by+Anaika+Miller%2FFoothill+Dragon+Press.

    Registered sex offender Gervase Kyle was warned last month by police not to approach Ventura campuses after trying to arrange meetings for Boost Ur School. Screenshot by Anaika Miller/Foothill Dragon Press.

     

    With financial hardships plaguing schools nationwide, clubs, teams and other school organizations have started increasing fundraising to earn enough money for typical school activities.

    But when a Buena High School employee met last month with an affiliate from a new national online fundraising program called Boost Ur School, she didn’t expect to meet a registered sex offender.

    According to a police report filed Oct. 4, the unidentified Buena employee met on campus with Gervase Kyle, 80, Ventura. The employee recognized Kyle as a registered sex offender and notified police. Public records show Kyle was convicted of the continuous sexual abuse of a child in 1990.

    Buena’s principal Jesus Vaca said that Kyle did not have any contact with students at Buena the day he met with the employee to present fundraising material.

    “The person came onto campus and as soon as one of our employees recognized him, he was immediately asked to leave,” Vaca said.

    Kyle stated in the police report that he didn’t see anything wrong with entering Buena’s campus because he had been fixing printers at Buena for about 10 years.

    Police did not release the name of the printer repair company Kyle worked for, and Kyle did not return phone calls from The Foothill Dragon Press. As of publication, neither the Ventura Unified School District nor Vaca would confirm whether Kyle had serviced printers at Buena.

    School Resource Officer Jesus Quezada said that he did not arrest Kyle but contacted him to remind him that it is a punishable offense for a sex offender to enter a school campus, as stated in California Penal Code Section 626.81 (a), and that in order to visit a school, Kyle must attain a written letter of permission from the principal of the school.

    Quezada emailed every Ventura Unified School District staff member Oct. 13 to alert them of Kyle’s presence on a school campus, but neither parents nor students were made aware of the incident.

    Sonia Zosimo, senior police services officer for the City of Ventura, said there are 181 registered sex offenders in Ventura, 24 of whom have registered as transient or homeless.

    “I have parents who are sex offenders. They have children in a school, and they have to get a letter from the principal stating that they can visit the school to pick up their kid or to see a talent show if their child performs,” Zosimo explained.

    While the names, addresses and crimes of the majority of registered sex offenders are posted on California’s Megan’s Law website, some are not. Incest and juvenile cases are registered but are not public in order to protect the identity of the victims.

    Foothill’s principal Joe Bova said that all schools make it a priority to keep track of who visits them.

    “The most important job of someone working the perimeter is to keep people off campus,” Bova said. “Our biggest worry isn’t that our students are going to do something wrong; it’s that someone who is a danger to the school is going to come in.”

    However, Foothill students still expressed concern over the fact that a sex offender could access school grounds as an independent contractor without school staff knowing.

    “I feel it would be pretty wrong that that type of evil could be found on campus,” said junior Elena Schink.

    “It would be creepy to know that a school couldn’t catch something like that,” added sophomore Elias Ontiveros.

     

    A “revolutionary new fundraising program” for schools

    Boost Ur School, headquartered in Tampa, Fla., advertises itself as a “revolutionary new fundraising program that is simple to implement and can quickly generate thousands of dollars” for schools, clubs or other organizations by selling merchandise online. It offers everything from weight loss pills to binoculars, and it gets schools involved through affiliates who register organizations with Boost Ur School.

    Boost Ur School immediately terminated Gervase Kyle's affiliation, however his webpage still is publicly viewable as of publication.

    A Boost Ur School affiliate can create a personalized web page and then start recruiting local school groups. Boost Ur School provides business card templates and PowerPoint presentations to affiliates and encourages them to personally contact schools in order to increase fundraising opportunities.

    Students sign up online with Boost Ur School and are given the option to submit Facebook, MySpace and email information to the company.

    When contacted on Oct. 14 by The Foothill Dragon Press, Boost Ur School executive director Sadie Tuner-Stebbins, who is also CEO of Pure Chemistry Diversified, Boost Ur School’s parent company, stated she was unaware that Kyle was a registered sex offender.

    “We are just as shocked as you are,” Turner-Stebbins said.

    “It appears that Mr. Kyle has a history as a sex offender,” said Kendall Almerico, CEO and attorney for Boost Ur School, via email. “We were not aware of this until your phone call, and certainly would not have allowed him to become an affiliate had we known so.”

    “Mr. Kyle’s affiliation with Boost Ur School was immediately and irrevocably terminated,” said Almerico.

    As of publication 25 days after being notified of Kyle’s criminal record, however, Boost Ur School had not deleted Kyle’s affiliate webpage, which remains visible to the public.

    Almerico stated that affiliates are never supposed to have direct contact with students, only with coaches, advisers and other adults.

    However, as a precaution since this incident, he said that “Boost Ur School has implemented new and more stringent internal procedures to investigate the backgrounds of affiliates and potential affiliates.”

    Almerico also confirmed that the company has since run background checks on all other existing affiliates and found no other suspicious situations.

     

    Who should be bringing past criminal records to light?

    Although Boost Ur School officials say that they are now doing more background checks, this brings up the question of who should be responsible for checking criminal records, the employer or the client purchasing the employer’s services?

    In times when even children and parents are able to look up registered sex offenders under Megan’s Law, how can sex offenders still get on a school campus and become an affiliate of a school fundraising program so easily?

    California law gives protection to most employees. Ventura employment lawyer Kristi Plothschild explained that “an employer can’t inquire into the personal lives” of potential employees because it is a privacy issue.

    However, for schools and school districts, the policy is completely different. Anthony Ramos, general counsel for Ventura Unified School District, said that anybody who regularly works for the district and has contact with students does undergo a background check, signs a contract with the district, and is subject to fingerprinting.

    But Ramos said independent contractors who are not expected to interact with students or who are not going to be working during school hours are not screened as thoroughly.

    When asked whether or not the district should do a background check on everyone who works on a school campus, regardless of when or how long they work, Ramos answered that this would be “a pretty unreasonable burden to put on a district, so we use a happy medium.”

    “Is there an immediate policy to go to Megan’s Law and check?” he said, “No. Is this something that should be done? I don’t know.”

     

    Number of transient sex offenders has doubled in Ventura

    Sex offenders in California must update their information annually to help the Megan’s Law web site remain as current as possible in order to provide the most accurate information to the public.

    “Annually, within five working days of their birthday, they have to come in to update their registration papers and at that time we take their picture,” Zosimo said.

    Sex offenders who register as transient are required to update their records every 30 days, as it is harder to keep track of them without an address.

    A law passed in 2006 in California, known as Jessica’s Law, makes it illegal for a sex offender to live within 2,000 feet of a school or park, and this has limited the number of possible homes for sex offenders, experts say.

    “The number of sex offenders who register as transient in Ventura has doubled since Jessica’s law went into effect,” Zosimo said. “Transients are not posted on the map [on the Megan’s Law web site]. You have to know the name of the individual to find them. It is kind of sad that this problem isn’t fixed yet.”

    On Nov. 1, Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza temporarily blocked the enforcement of Jessica’s law in Los Angeles County, ruling that the law was forcing many more parolees to become homeless and could be increasing the danger to students since it is harder to keep track of people without permanent addresses.

    California assembly bill that would have banned registered sex offenders from using social networking sites did not pass earlier this year. Critics complained it would be too difficult and expensive to enforce.

    Kyle maintains a Facebook page that is open to the public.

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