School Guards Ask Drivers to Stop and Think

Carmen Garcia isn’t a Hollywood stuntwoman or a Los Angeles police officer, yet she was just doing her job when she threw herself into the path of an oncoming car to push a 7-year-old boy to safety.

Each day, hundreds of school crossing guards like Garcia brave Los Angeles streets to ensure that thousands of elementary students make it to and from school safely.

What happened to Garcia-- who is recovering from a broken leg and hip and pelvic injuries--highlights the need for motorists to take extra precautions while driving near schools when children and crossing guards are present.

“People need to think in terms of how they would want motorists to act if it were their children trying to cross the street,” said Kathleen Jones, a supervisory crossing guard who works in the Valley. “I realize people are very busy, but leaving a little bit earlier and being able to slow down would certainly make a safer environment for the children and the guards.”

All too often, according to Jones, a motorist will try to sneak around a corner or accelerate through an intersection while children are crossing a street, even with a guard holding up a stop sign.

Jones, a 13-year veteran of the crossing guard program, trains and supervises more than a dozen guards who work at schools in Granada Hills, Van Nuys and Encino. In addition to rushed motorists, parents themselves also create a number of dangerous situations, crossing guards say.

Parents often park across the street from a school and wave to their children, encouraging them to run through traffic, guards complain. “They do it even when the crossing guard is present,” Jones said. “We’d like to have parents think about the burden of guilt they will experience if their child is injured.”

Parents also inhibit visibility around schools when they double-park, and some are notorious for darting across the street with their children in tow rather than waiting to cross with the crossing guard.

“It sets a bad example for the children,” said Birdie Westmoreland, a lieutenant in the city’s crossing guard program who oversees the West Valley. “Parents are some of the worst violators.”

The crossing guard program dates from the 1940s and has been administered by a handful of city and county agencies over the years. For roughly the past decade, it has been overseen by the city’s Department of Transportation.

Each year the city of Los Angeles spends about $4.7 million on the crossing guard program, which employs more than 340 guards, more than 100 of whom work in the Valley, said Michael Inouye, who heads the office of parking management and intersection control. Crossing guard officials are currently having a problem recruiting guards in the Valley.

The average guard is paid $7.50 an hour and works a little more than five hours a day, split between the morning and afternoon, Inouye said. To become a crossing guard, applicants must undergo criminal background checks, and if hired, they must complete a combination of on-the-job and classroom training.

All crossing guards are equipped with orange vests, hats and stop signs, and Inouye said he hopes to soon have them outfitted in white uniforms to increase their visibility.

He said other changes could include having volunteer guards and corporate sponsorship of intersections--sponsors could put up their logos for $8,000 to $12,000 an intersection, as in the freeway cleanup program.