DOVER, Del.- Dover city officials want to extend the state's sex offender ordinance. Right now current law states that medium- and high-risk sex offenders must live and work more than 500 feet away from schools.
If an ordinance is passed, the law would extend that rule to include day cares.
Laura Parent, director of the Corporate Kids Learning Center, said she supports the idea after a past experience.
"I had a center downtown and we had someone living next to us and found out that he was a sex offender, and that was scary to know that he was right next door," she said.
Parent said the law makes sense because children in day cares are young.
"The kids are so young that they'll talk to anybody if anybody comes up and walking by and they see strangers," she said. "They're too young to realize that it could be somebody that they shouldn't be talking to."
Marie Kozel of Dover said she leaves her daughter at day care regularly and supports the law.
"As a working mom I put my child's safety in someone else's hands, and I want to know that she is protected no matter where she is," she said. "And in a day care, if there's sex offenders nearby, they can see the dropoffs and the pickups and they get to see too much," said Kozel.
Dover police said there are 188 registered sex offenders that live, work or go to school in Dover.
