Complaints from angry parents prompted a Lancaster school bus agency on Wednesday to move a newly relocated bus stop away from the corner outside the home of a registered sex offender.
A day after the new school year started, officials from the Antelope Valley Schools Transportation Agency, which transports Lancaster School District students, visited the stop and agreed to the change.
"I was very upset," said Monik Shields, whose daughter is a sixth-grader. "To put a bus stop right smack dab in front of his house, it's like you are daring him to do something."
The bus stop is for children who attend Endeavour Middle School and had been located at the southeast corner of 47th Street West and Avenue J, across the street from the offender's house. The stop was moved farther east on Avenue J to 46th Street West, and a second stop was added a few blocks away.
The resident, 47-year-old Jaime Alba, said he was concerned about having the stop near his house, where he has lived since May 2006.
"I'm worried about that. I can't be close to children. I will talk to my probation officer," said Alba, a former postal worker. "I'm trying to be away from them and not to look at them."
According to the Megan's Law Web site, a list of people required to register in California as sex offenders, Alba was convicted of committing lewd or lascivious acts with a child 14 or 15.
Alba said he served three months in jail in 2005.
Shields said the 46th Street West stop is still not far enough away because the students are still within view of his house, but transit officials said they are trying their best, given the number of sex offenders in the Antelope Valley.
The Megan's Law Web site shows 292 registered offenders living in Lancaster and 166 in neighboring Palmdale.
"There are so many areas that they live in. It's hard to locate a stop where you are not having that kind of effect," said Sandi Vaughn, transit operations manager.
The bus stop was in the housing tract last year but was moved to the 47th Street West spot after residents complained of students breaking sprinklers, pulling plants, climbing fences, and throwing rocks at houses and dogs, transit officials said.