by Deputy Diva

Hats off to the school on this one.

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (May 10) – 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.

“I’ve already been punished for this. This isn’t about me anymore. Now they’re punishing my kids, and that’s taking it a little too far,” said Jones, who served five years in prison after being convicted in 1990 of the forcible rape of a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. 

The School Superintendent disagrees and says…

“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.”

Smith said she’s denied requests by five offenders, four of whom visited her office.

“Half of them have been extremely sad about the decision, and half of them have been rudely angry,” she said.  SOURCE

The Board of Education is also backing the School Superintendent.  In this day and age, you can never be too careful. Hopefully this man who supposedly takes education so seriously will educate his son about the lifelong stigma one faces as a sex offender after having sex with an underage female.  Click HERE for more details.