March 29, 2024

Visitors now required to present photo ID at Newton schools

“I think we did everything we could,” said Bill Perrenoud.

Perrenoud, a member of the Newton Community School District Board of Education, made this comment at Monday’s meeting in regard to the district’s visitors policy, which has come under fire in recent months.

The policy came under scrutiny after a 33-year-old California man now facing several criminal charges visited Berg Middle School and Aurora Heights Elementary School in late May and attended a school sponsored pool party in early June.

David LaVera was initially charged with enticing a minor and carrying weapons, and is now also charged with third-degree sexual abuse, two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, two counts of invasion of privacy and another count of attempting to entice a minor.

Superintendent Bob Callaghan reiterated past statements he made in regard to LaVera’s visit to those facilities. He said that LaVera signed in under his own name, was accompanied by two district parents into the buildings and that he was always under staff supervision during his visits.

LaVera’s initial charges came in June after police say he claimed to be an actor from the “Twilight” movie series and used his alleged celebrity status to entice a 14-year-old girl to a park in Baxter after having sexually explicit conversations with the teen on Facebook.

In response to LaVera having been in such close proximity to an unknown number of students, the district has been researching a solution and Callaghan gave the board several recommendations, which were later approved.

“I think it provides us with an excellent opportunity to look at our procedures. None of our children were in … their safety wasn’t jeopardized, no one was hurt in our buildings or taken advantage of,” said board member Donna Cook.

The most significant change is that all visitors will be required to present some form of photo identification, which will be photocopied and kept on file.

“Where I feel that our district can make an improvement is to request identification,” Callaghan said. “Then it would have been certain — even though the individual signed in under his real name — we would have had a photo ID and it would have been on hand.”

All schools, with the exception of the Emerson Hough campus and Newton Senior High School, will maintain a singular entrance point and a visitor has to be buzzed in after verifying who they are visually via a security camera and verbally through the intercom.

In addition, all staff members will be required to wear school-issued identification badges at all times, and will undergo training with Callaghan and other administrative staff on how to properly enforce the visitors policy.

Perrenoud also raised the issue of implementing the Raptor System, a program that can identify sex offenders once a state issued ID has been scanned, which was something the board had discussed previously.

“That system, or a system like that, would not have changed or identified differently the individual (LaVera) that came into our building previously,” Cook said.

Callaghan backed Cook’s point by pointing out that before his recent charges, LaVera had no criminal record in regard to any of the charges he is currently facing.

District Business Manager Gayle Isaac indicated in past meetings, that the Raptor System would cost between $12,000 to $15,000 to install on every campus and around $2,500 annually to maintain.

Contact Senior Staff Writer Ty Rushing at (641) 792-3121 ext. 6532 or at trushing@newtondailynews.com.