Parents Outraged Over Teen Sex Offender Attending Palo Alto School
PALO ALTO (CBS SF) -- Peninsula parents were demanding answers from Palo Alto school district officials Tuesday, asking how a teenage sex offender was allowed to stay on a high school campus.
Parents of students in Palo Alto were outraged at the district leaders' school board meeting in Palo Alto Tuesday afternoon, angry that officials failed to tell them they allowed a teen convicted of a sex crime to remain in school.
They only learned about the troubled teen from media reports.
"We need to know when there's an active predator around," said one parent.
"There's not a sense of safety in terms of the administration making us aware, because it's obvious a lot of this was kept private," said another.
One by one, parents expressed their concern to school board members.
"They have not only allowed the predator to remain on campus, but they failed to alert the community of the disturbing events that occurred," explained a third.
The teen in question was allowed to stay in school at Pally High School in Palo Alto even after officials learned this February about his 2015 conviction for a sex crime.
But that wasn't the only blemish on the boy's record.
Last year, a female student reported him to school leaders for a separate sexual assault.
"My daughter has two classes with the person in question. He has acted inappropriately toward her," a parent complained.
A district spokesperson who declined an on camera interview said that, although the student is a convicted criminal, he still has the right to an education.
The spokesperson noted it is the court's decision to remove a student from a school, not the district's decision.
But the parents who attended the meeting said they want the district to learn a lesson
"My children are my everything. Everyone's child here is their everything, said a parent. "So you need to do something about the environment you need do something about how the children trust the teachers the staff at their schools."
The Palo Alto school district spokesperson said that the school did discipline the student for the incident that took place at Pally last year.
