The Observation Deck

I've been thinking about this since I read in the Park thread about Park employees being pulled from Park duty to be substitute Crossing guards.

I have several questions here.

1) Are Crossing Guards paid for by the Schools? but the subsitutes paid for by the city? How does that work, crossing municipal budgets?

2) How much including salary and benefits do we pay crossing guards per year?

3) How many times did a park employee have to substitute?

4) Have we ever considered other options? Why were they rejected?

I was talking to Don and I pointed out that I was a crossing guard when I was in 7th and 8th grade. It was very prestigious to be selected as a crossing guard. We had both regular guards and substitute guards. We got to come to school 5 minutes late and leave 5 minutes early. Don said the same thing occurred in his school district. Is there a reason why we aren't doing that here? Is this an old fashioned idea - that we did here 30 some years ago - but not now for some reason?

Maybe should we consider HS students? I would bet that H2O would count this toward service hours. Lots of Colleges want to see service hours and Private HS require so many serivce hours - perhaps we could work with St. Ed's on this.

I'll be the first to say that the crossing guard at Clifton and West Clifton was great. I think she has been there for years. She knew my kids and has been amazing. Maybe someone like this can coordinate and be the roving substitute for the inevitable site that needs a substitute.

Just tossing out ideas.

Lynn Farris wrote:
1) Are Crossing Guards paid for by the Schools? but the subsitutes paid for by the city? How does that work, crossing municipal budgets?

2) How much including salary and benefits do we pay crossing guards per year?

3) How many times did a park employee have to substitute?

4) Have we ever considered other options? Why were they rejected?

1. The crossing guards are paid for by the City. Years ago it was the responsibility of the schools. For some reason the City agreed to assume the responsiblity.

2. The 2007 comprehensive budget says $262,000. There are 32 guards.

3. Apparently enough times that the 35 parks employees are unable to maintain the parks.

4. That is unknowable!!

Junior high school students use to be crossing guards. They did a fine job. Your idea of using high school students makes so much sense it will never be adopted. There is no reason for this to be a paid position.

It's another one of those great mysteries. In the olden days 15 and 16 year olds where quite capable of handling complex jobs. Nowadays we are told that jobs like mowing lawns or acting as crossing guards are too dangerous. Did you every notice in the high school photos of the 1930's and 1940's the students looked so serious (as in having sense) and mature?

Riddle: If there are 32 crossing guards and 35 parks department employees how many people does it take to mow a lawn?

Since I moved here in 1993, I am really don't know when the crossing guards changed from children to City Workers...but I can tell you from a review for you next Lakewood Historical Society Calender...We have found several pictures with children as crossing guards and as you can see they were sponsored by AAA.

I'm wondering why couldn't we do that now? If it worked then..why was it changed. And I think it was an honor to be a crossing guard..from what I hear...

See the picture at http://lakewoodobserver.com/photoblogs/ ... ing-guards

By the way ...the Lakewood Historical Society Calendar will be out in about a month..it features all the schools and many kids..maybe you can find yourself or one of your teachers! I will keep you posted..this is just one of the photos we found.

Rhonda Loje

Back in Roosevelt Elementary, when I was in 5th and 6th grade, I was a "school guard". We wore white belts and had actual metal badges that emulated some police design. It was a big thing to be a school guard. We each had an intersection to work, and with our orange and black lettered flags, we'd cross everyone. Roosevelt had possibly 10 or more student guards, I don't remember, but we also had one older man who also crossed the kids at the corner of Lincoln and Athens augmented by student guards.

I assume he was paid to do that, but we all did it as students because it was "cool" if you were accepted by the powers to be at the time. Cost to the school system was that one man's pay.

We never had anyone run over in the 6 yrs. I was there, so it worked.

Why can't the same be done today? It's just not that difficult.

Mark Allan Crnolatas

I remembered at lunch the Lakewood Police Chief, I don't think it was the current one telling my children that he was a crossing guard when he was in school and that is what made him decide to become a policeman.

Safety Patrol!

They had them last school year, IIRC...

Yes they are safety patrol, but there is also an adult at the major intersections helping the children across the streets. From what I have seen the safety patrol just patrol the school grounds, "Don't walk on the grass, Don't run, Don't enter the building early with out an adult, so on and so on"

I myself have a friend that is a city worker who was a park grounds keeper that often filled in as a crossing guard when needed. And from what I was told...they get payed just as much as the policemen do to fill in because on a technicality they are the ones that are supposed to fill in.

I was a guard at grant nearly 20 years ago and the same adult woman crossing guard has been working the Andrews Detroit road since. She is a wonderful woman and taught all of us a lot about safety and maturity. I was lucky enough to be one of the captains my 5th grade year and we were able to keep all the guards in line. Make sure they were at their shift on time and make sure they were not taking advantage of their position. We had special meetings and we took pride in what we did.
Today my daughter goes to Lincoln and I see the same maturity and control on those young guards. Maybe more kids should be allowed in some sort of a rotational basis. It is a great thing to be part of.
I am really surprised the city pays for the adult staff, it is clearly a school type duty, wonder who controls that?

My son was on the safety patrol last year. Kids had to be referred by a teacher and had to maintain a certain GPA. The kids only patrolled school grounds. I know when my son started elementary school the safety patrol were still helping at the main intersections. So in the last 4 or 5 years the program changed. I'm sure it was changed due to liability or something like that.

My children were on the safety patrol too. Is it because the students that are doing this are in 5th grade that we feel we need so many adult guards. I can see 1 or 2 to coordinate - but 32 at a cost of over a quarter of a million a year?

I guess the question has to be why did we feel even with the safety patrol that we needed 32 adult guards? If it is the maturity level, maybe we can still start them at 5th grade and make the Junior or HS kids responsible for the more dangerous crossings. Give them impresive titles and certainly recognize their service hours.

Why did we change this from the schools? I know it all comes out of our pocket no matter which entity subsidizes it - but if we want to go back to the idea of the safety patrol actually being the crossing guards - it really may make better sense for the schools to coordinate it.

My only thought on this subject is that I think it is too dangerous to put these kids out there. There are too many thoughtless drivers on cell phones, drunk, on drugs or just plain stupid.

There are more cars on the road than ever before and I've noticed a lot of adult pedestrians running across the street because they don't trust the drivers.

My kids are grown but, in this day and age, I would never let them be a crossing guard.

Even grown?

I love the crossing guards who "cross" everybody. And I mean assist everybody, regarless of age, across the street. It's very nice.

No dl - if they really want to, now, they can. At 34, 24 and 23 I think they probably know more about the wild, wild westside than I do. LOL!

Well, I think we can thank the lawyers for the adult, paid supervision, (sorry Jeff!!). I would think the "who is responsible!" questions that come about when a child gets injured prompted this decision. Even the best guards are going to have a day when a driver acts the idiot and blows through a yellow, hitting or narrowly missing a child. When this happens, the lawsuits begin to fly and in the end, SOMETHING has to change and this usually means putting someone more "responsible" in the position of ensuring the crossing of streets is as safe as possible. The idea of "Accidents" have really left the lexicon in America today (for good or ill, that is up to the reader). Someone has to pay.

I half wonder how the "right turn on red" changed crossing guard duties (when did this change? Wikipedia notes the 70's in the east so I doubt that the kids above in the picture had to worry about it). Granted, on school days there is no turn on red but tell that to the driver who doesn't know what to do at a blinking red or yellow light or the one who blows through an intersection without stopping when the traffic light power goes out.

I think the biggest thing is less about the responsibility of the crossers and more about the drivers and frankly, I want my 7 year old girl crossing Hilliard or Delaware with someone more capable of keeping an eye out for such drivers. I think perspectives certainly change when it is your current kid walking to school. Ask me again in 20 years and I might be more open to someone else doing the service!

This doesn't answer why it is a paid position, though. This seems ripe for volunteerism. Now it might be hard to get someone to volunteer after they were paid but aren't a lot of communities using volunteer guards? I guess with that system, if someone doesn't show up, who fills in? Gads, we have more ways to communicate than ever before but no one is really talking or listening to anyone. Yeesh.

If the "Walking School Bus" model takes off, will this mean the end of paid crossers? Or some of them? How about putting that funds back into the police budget and assign (as they already do, I believe) a couple more officers on the more dangerous corners (the Madison/Hillard conundrum, for example) and look for volunteers for the rest.