With minimal effort, schools can receive automatic e-mail updates from the Virginia State Police notifying educators when registered sex offenders move to the neighborhood.

But only slightly more than half of Central Vir-ginia's public schools have signed up for the program, according to state police records. Of 71 institutions, 37 are registered for the service.

Although the online sex offender registry is available to anyone with Internet access, the community e-mail notification program is open only to public and private schools, state-licensed day care centers, foster homes and group homes.

The process is simple: Applicants provide an address, phone number, contact name, a tax ID number and a business license number where applicable.

Fluvanna County Superintendent Tom Smith said last week that he did not know about the service. The county's five schools and its central office are not registered for the updates.

"We'll look into that," he said, adding that the school system performs background checks on employees and receives mail from the state police when a local person is convicted of a sex offense.

"I'm going to register the schools right now," said Jim Dumminger, clerk of the county School Board and director of finance. As a former principal, he periodically checked the sex offender registry Web site for new names, a practice the county encourages.

Buckingham and other schools have one obstacle: computers that block sites and e-mails with the word "sex" in the Web address or subject line. But Dumminger noted that he is able to access the state police site.

Charlottesville and the counties of Albemarle, Greene, Louisa, Madison, Nelson and Orange all receive the updates at their central offices, and in many cases, they pass on the information to the schools, administrators said.

The human resources department for Madison County, where a convicted rapist played Santa Claus at a primary school in December, forwards the e-mails to its four schools, Superintendent Brenda Tanner said. None of the schools is signed up for the service.

The number of registered schools exceeds the number of unregistered institutions at only four of the nine school systems in the Charlottesville area.

"We have been doing that for some time," Stille Howen, the school system's executive director of administrative services, said of the e-mail service.

"I just think it's good business for our principals to know if there are any people in their neighborhoods that might be on this registry, just so they can be more vigilant and we can keep our schools as safe as possible."

Charlottesville High School, five city elementary schools and the city's alternative school program receive the updates; Greenbrier Elementary, Walker Upper Elementary and Buford Middle schools are not signed up for the service.

The city's acting superintendent, Bobby Thompson, said Friday that all of the schools should be registered for the updates. He added that he was going to speak with human resources director Michael Heard on Monday about the situation.

Only the middle school in Greene County is unregistered; the county's high school, two elementary schools and technical center all receive the updates.

Greene's superintendent did not return a phone message Friday, but an employee said the middle school likely receives the information from the central office.

Three of Orange County's four elementary schools are registered for the e-mails, as are its two middle schools. Missing from the state police list, however, are Lightfoot Elementary and Orange County High.

According to Superintendent William R. Crawford, all of the county's schools have signed up to receive the e-mails. He said he asked principals to register for the program after he became superintendent last July.

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