Parents concerned about school bus stop near sex offender's home

MIDDLEBOROUGH, Mass. — A parent in Middleborough reached out to FOX25 concerned about a school bus stop located next door to a level 3 sex offender.

Alison Roberts’ daughters are picked up and dropped off at the end of the street they live on, just one house away from Stephen Reynolds’ home.

“Out of the 12 school days he's been out there nine times this year,” Roberts said.

In the early 90s, Reynolds spent time in prison for indecent assault and battery of a child under age 14. Now he’s classified as a level 3 sex offender, which in Massachusetts is given to those people considered most likely to reoffend.

“I can’t tell somebody they can’t come outside but because he comes outside at a bus stop for a particular amount of time I feel it's an issue,” Roberts said.

Reynolds agreed to speak with FOX25, and said the only times he’s outside is when he’s doing yard work or watching the birds.

“They're overreacting. They cannot get past that you’re a registered sex offender,” he said.

Roberts first took her concerns to school officials last year, and they reversed the bus route to let her daughters get off on the opposite side of Reynolds’ home, but she said it’s still too close for comfort.

“It seems like a very easy fix.  It's one bus stop, once cul-de-sac, two children.  There's no other stops on the cul-de-sac, it's very simple,” she said.

Middleborough Public Schools Superintendent Brian Lynch sent FOX25 the following statement:

As Superintendent of the Middleborough Public Schools, I was made aware of the concern raised by this family last year. At that time, the school district evaluated the location of this bus stop in conjunction with the School Resource Officer of the Middleborough Police Department and decided to reverse the bus route to help address the parent's concerns without extending the length of the ride for children.  This change allowed children to exit off of the bus on the opposite side of the street from where they were initially exiting, away from the home in question and directly to the care of their parents without having to cross a busy street. Since our practice is to release the children directly to parents, the children are under constant supervision of the bus driver and their parents.  This bus route and bus stop have been in place since 1991 and aside from the complaint we received last year and the reversal of the route, it has, to my knowledge, been managed without incident.

Cox Media Group