GRANADA HILLS : Removal of Crossing Guard Protested

Administrators and parents from a parochial school are gathering signatures in an attempt to pressure a city agency to reconsider its decision to eliminate the crossing guard at Hayvenhurst Avenue and Chatsworth Street.

Elizabeth Moreno, president of the parent-teacher organization at St. John the Baptist de la Salle School, said Monday that she already has 200 signatures in support of keeping a city-funded crossing guard at the intersection. She hopes to have 500 by this weekend.

“I’ll knock on doors if I have to,” Moreno said. “This is very vital.”

The decision to remove the crossing guard came in June, not as a result of budget cuts, but as part of the city Transportation Department’s ongoing effort to evaluate which intersections are most in need of guards. According to school officials, a guard has worked at the Chatsworth Street intersection for more than 20 years.

The department provides 357 guards for intersections near public and private schools based on a determination of danger at a particular crossing, said Kaye Beechum, chief of parking enforcement operations for the department. The guard at Hayvenhurst Avenue and Chatsworth Street cost the department $10,335 a year, she said.

Beechum said the department determined that the intersection in Granada Hills, which students from St. John the Baptist and Tulsa Street Elementary School use on their way to and from school, is not busy enough to warrant a guard. The minimum traffic necessary for a guard is 300 turning vehicles and 20 children in one hour, she said.

Vicki Quan Lee, principal of St. John, said the issue of safety should not be based on a tally.

“We don’t want a student to have to be hit before we say a guard is needed,” Lee said.

Two other San Fernando Valley schools that lost crossing guards last spring filed appeals on the decisions, according to the department. An appeal by Capistrano Avenue Elementary in West Hills was denied, and Ranchito Avenue Elementary in Panorama City awaits a September determination.

According to the Transportation Department, administrators from St. John and Tulsa Elementary failed to file appeals in the required time period of 20 days after notification. School officials and parents of St. John said they were unaware of the department’s policy.