Couple Sues Over Background Checks At Their Kid's School

You can hardly visit your kid’s school these days without handing over your license to have a background check done to make sure you’re not some child-raping murderer.

It can be a bit of a hassle if you’re, say, a conscientious parent who may not be the most legal resident of the US but still wants to participate in your kid’s education (Cue outraged response of the “Send `em back to Mexico” crowd).

Or, we guess, if you actually are a child-raping murderer.

An Austin couple, who are both legal and non-raping, has filed suit against a school district over the checks, which are mostly done by a Houston company.

Yvonne and Larry Meadows say the checks by Raptor Systems violate their privacy, and they don’t feel too comfortable handing all that info over to a private company.

“Raptor sold (their system) on this ‘registered sex offenders, we
need to be on guard,’ idea but it was primarily a visitor management
system,” Meadows told a reporter.

The lawsuit is the first of its kind against Raptor, which serves 5,000 schools nationwide.

We’re checking to see if Houston is one of them; even if they’re not, they do ask for drivers licenses when you sign in as a visitor.

Update: HISD spokesman Norm Uhl confirms that “many of our schools” use the Raptor system.

— Richard Connelly