The Hooksett School Board has adopted new policies that would provide better notification of and protection against sex offenders living in the town.

School faculty and staff will now be told where sex offenders reside. While they will not be able to disseminate the information to parents, they will be able to use it for security.

Changes were made to existing policies regarding visitors, volunteers and early release of students from school to protect students against predators.

A team of school officials, teachers and community members worked on the policy changes over the past year, prompted by a citizen’s concern that a registered sex offender was bringing some Underhill students to school.

The third and final reading into the record, which is required in the adoption process, took place at the School Board meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 19.

Any volunteers having unsupervised contact with students already undergo criminal background checks, but wording was added into the volunteer policy to extend it to unsupervised access to the school as a whole. It is also now clearly states in the policy that no registered sex offenders can volunteer at schools.

“This is just to make sure that it’s very explicit,” said School Board Chairman Joanne McHugh. “Sometimes things are not stated and people think that they’re obvious,” adding the change doesn’t mean sex offenders were permitted to be school volunteers previously.

Visitors to any Hooksett schools will now be required to say why they’re visiting, in addition to the old policy’s requirements, which were to sign and out and be identified as visitors.

They will not be required to have background checks, McHugh said, unless they have direct interaction with students.

The committee working on the policy changes sought advice from the Hooksett Police Department and state Rep. David Hess to make sure the changes go as far as possible without compromising any state laws.

The changes also include the district’s promise to release a newsletter at the beginning of each school year notifying parents of any updates in sex offender laws and policies, and directing them to the state’s sex offender Web site: www.egov. nh.gov/nsor.

According to the Web site, 12 people convicted of sex offenses against children reported living in Hooksett.