Rose Garden Resident
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City approves crossing guards at Hoover, despite funding shortfall
By Eli Segall
Walking to school shouldn't be risky, but across San Jose, 18 schools that the city has earmarked for crossing guards over the past two years still don't have them. Hoover Middle School was the most recent school to receive city approval for two crossing guards on Jan. 18. When those guards actually start remains unclear.
Why the wait? Budget cuts.
Last summer, the San Jose Police Department--which trains and pays San Jose's crossing guards--was forced to lay off two crossing guard supervisors. This left two staff members to oversee all 186 guards in San Jose, said Sgt. Jim Roach, head of the department's School Safety and Education Unit.
Until more supervisors are hired, some schools will have to wait, Roach said.
"We don't have the manpower to oversee all these guards," Roach said. "The city cuts our coordinators' positions, and then they tell us to hire more guards. It's just not possible."
Roach said it costs $8,000 to fund each crossing guard annually. The safety unit's annual budget is typically about $2 million, he added.
During the interim, some schools have been using volunteers; others have left their crosswalks vacant. At Williams Elementary School, which gained approval last May for crossing guards at two separate intersections, school officials have had to rely on fifth-grade volunteers to man the crosswalks.
"The safety of our kids is number one for all of us," Hoover principal Dorothy Kennedy said. "I'm just grateful the city will deal with this as soon as they can."
To be granted a city-funded guard, schools must score 120 points or higher on a state-standardized formula. The higher the number, the greater the need; calculations are based several factors, including traffic patterns, accident history and size of intersection.
The School Pedestrian Safety Committee is the deciding factor in which schools ultimately get a crossing guard. The all-volunteer body includes one representative from each of the 16 school districts in San Jose. The committee takes both the score and "unusual conditions"neighborhood specific problemsinto account when doling out guards.
"There's a dozen different factors in that formula," said Russ Taft, school safety manager for the San Jose Department of Transportation, "but no formula can cover every variable. That's why we have the committee."
Funding for the police department's crossing guard program will be discussed in May as part of San Jose's annual review of the city budget.
