Certain sex offenders may be banned from going on school grounds, to activities

Sen. Caryn Tyson, R-Parker, shown here during a Feb. 2, 2026, hearing, questioned Thursday whether a bill barring certain sex offenders from going on school property was too broad. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — Some sex offenders on the state’s registry won’t be allowed on school grounds or to attend school activities under a proposal that passed in the Kansas Senate on Thursday. 

House Bill 2527, which originally focused on preventing some sex offenders from participating in work release programs not run by the Department of Corrections, was expanded in the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, said Sen. Kellie Warren, a Leawood Republican. 

It now includes a section that forbids individuals on the sex offender registry from going on school property or to school activities if they committed a crime when they were 18 years or older on a victim who was under 18. 

The new section drew questions and concerns from a few senators, including Sen. Caryn Tyson, a Parker Republican.

One of her constituents has a son who was accused in a Romeo and Juliet kind of scenario and cannot get off the list, she said. 

“He was over 18, she was below 18, and the parents pressed charges,” Tyson said. “If this was to become law, he would never be able to go to any of his children’s activities in the school. Is that right?”

Warren confirmed that and said legislators discussed changing the victim’s age during last year’s proposal of a similar bill. If the bill goes to conference committee, changes could be made to align the school property section with the work release section, Warren said. 

The bill bans sex offenders from work release if they were older than 18 and victimized a child under age 16, Warren said. 

Kansas City Democrat Sen. David Haley said the “perennial scarlet letter” and its effects on individuals who committed lesser sex offenses was an issue. He questioned whether it would be possible to consider which offenses the bill applied to.

“Certainly, all of us want to ensure that those violent offenders, those that have perpetrated horrible acts, sex acts, rapes, what have you, may have to continue with the perennial stigma, even after matriculating from their time in prison,” he said.

But many sex offenders are “often caught up in consensual acts” that society is against because of the victim’s age, Haley said. 

He recommended in the Senate Judiciary Committee that violent sexual offenders be held to that higher standard, while those who were “caught up in the quote statutory provisions only” be treated differently, Haley said. 

A constituent who is on the registry from a crime 30 years ago can’t drop his grandchildren off at school in an area that put a restriction like this in place, Haley said. 

“I think that is unduly harsh,” he said. “I think there should be a level of time when we afford a parent or grandparent or legal guardian to be exempt from the bill that’s before us right now. I hate to throw the baby out with the bath water for what are some pretty good points in this bill, but it’s too harsh and it doesn’t make sense.”

Warren said the Senate needs to remember who they’re trying to protect. She said young people in a Romeo and Juliet scenario, where one is 16 and the other 17, aren’t going to be on the sexual offender registry, though there may be exceptions. 

“But who are we trying to protect here?” she asked. “We’re trying to protect kids from sex offenses, from sex crimes.”

In the bill, violators face a level 7 person felony on the first offense; a level 5 personal felony on a second offense; and a level 3 person felony on a third offense. 

The bill passed the Senate and will return to the House, which passed it Feb. 18 without the section regarding sex offenders on school property.