The Observation Deck

I can't believe you'd find volunteers who will show up every day they are needed for every shift of a crossing guard.

Volunteer projects that require daily hours wear pretty thin pretty fast, even if you never have to go outside to fulfill your obligation!

dl meckes wrote:I can't believe you'd find volunteers who will show up every day they are needed for every shift of a crossing guard.

Volunteer projects that require daily hours wear pretty thin pretty fast, even if you never have to go outside to fulfill your obligation!

This probably explains why we have 32 paid crossing guards, then. Maybe local organizations or business's could sponsor a corner or three? Local Church A will provide two guards for these corners and Church B will do these while Business A will provide a guard or two at this corner (and surely will wear a t-shirt proclaiming their affiliation) and business B elsewhere. And so on. Who knows. Pay a handful of people a small portion of that original fund to coordinate to ensure people are on the corners.

At $262k, at least it is a fair bang for the buck. No one is getting rich off of that amount of money with that many guards.

And all those groups and businesses are going to pay for background checks on all of the volunteers?

dl meckes wrote:And all those groups and businesses are going to pay for background checks on all of the volunteers?

Who needs background checks? Will they do that if 15 year olds take the helm at every corner, as suggested on page one of this discussion? Aren't there already some corners covered by kids? I know when my oldest was at St. James school, those streets were covered by illegally working 12 year olds. If they don't do checks for them, why for adults in unpaid, volunteer positions? I guess you have hit the second most likely reason for paid crossing guards...background checks. Less chance of child molesters when there is an actual screening process.

But lets say we had to do background checks of adult crossing guards (but apparently not children). This the city could do and I would assume their cost is far less than what is charged by Security Hut or some such. Maybe Lakewood already does free background checks? Some suburbs do. But even if they didn't in typical situations, I would think it would still be a huge cost savings for the city if all they did was pay a handful of people to coordinate volunteers and ensure that background checks were done.

Why can't we get a business to sponsor the Crossing Guards...ie AAA or some buiness in Lakewood to cover the cost...

Rhonda

dl meckes wrote:And all those groups and businesses are going to pay for background checks on all of the volunteers?

We do criminal background checks and driving background checks on all new hires. It costs $35.

Rhonda loje wrote:Why can't we get a business to sponsor the Crossing Guards...ie AAA or some buiness in Lakewood to cover the cost...

Rhonda

Probably because of the litigious age we live in, which is why you dont see many children as crossing guards anymore.

Do some cities in Cuyahoga County still use safety patrol instead of crossing guards? If so how do they handle it. It seems to me that the safety patrol - maybe with HS students should be able to help children across the street safely. Seriously, we trust 16 year olds with driving and the seniors - many of them can serve in Iraq - they should be able to assist a 1st grader in crossing the street.

JMHO

Lynn

I don't think the issue is helping little kids across the street. I think that adults guards are being used because traffic will obey their "stop" signs, whereas the same may not be true of a 14 year old telling a grumpy 35 year old to stop...

I'm not sure that even is we gave high school kids the authority to "direct traffic", that is, require it stop to allow kids to cross, that all motorists would respect that authority.

JMHO

Jeff

Jeff,

I hear what you are saying - but because we have some jerks that may not respect the authority of others doesn't mean that we should listen to the jerks.

As a woman, there are men that have been culturally conditioned not to respect my authority. Does that mean I shouldn't have certain jobs? Like a crossing guard or a policewoman?

Likewise should African Americans/Latinos/Middle Easterners be banned from jobs because certain people don't respect them?

I often see nice little ladies as crossing guards - not really authoritarian figures. Should they be banned too?

I do think the HS students should be able to handle this - maybe not the 5th graders at the bigger intersections. The HS 18 year olds are going to Iraq - if they can defend the country from terrorists they better be able to serve as a crossing guard.

And BTW, as a former student partol officer you really are crossing students at the big intersections with the lights - so the motorists are obeying the lights - not the crossing guard - the authority of the guard is more in telling the little children to cross when it is safe.

The parents that are scared of the children using a HS crossing guard - I wonder how many of them drive their children to schoo now with adults.

Just more food for thought. l