School’s Volunteer Crossing Guards Walk Fine Line

When parents at Citrus Glen Elementary School weren’t given a crossing guard, they decided to do it themselves.

They donned orange vests and school-issued stop signs and have been safely guiding kindergarten through fifth-grade students across the street since the school opened in September 1999.

Their daily ritual, considered a model of parental participation by many involved, has only one problem: It’s illegal. Ventura police have warned the volunteer guards that they are not authorized to do the work without proper training and could get slapped with a ticket for loitering in a crosswalk.

Now, a month after a Ventura boy was killed running for a school bus on a nearby road, parents, school administrators and city officials are grappling with how to safely get kids across the street, while staying within the law and without a runaway price tag.

It’s a problem not only in Ventura County but across Southern California, as friction builds between parents fearful for their children’s safety and local officials trying to control traffic on limited budgets.

In Los Angeles, the city Department of Transportation films renegade drivers outside of schools and has issued hundreds of traffic citations. In North Hollywood, a crossing guard was struck and killed by a teenage motorist last month outside Lankershim Elementary School after the driver dropped off his younger brother.

Lankershim Principal Debbie Martinez-Rambeau said it is critical to have a crossing guard at intersections without a stoplight.

“Many times motorists don’t see a little body going across the street,” she said. “The orange and yellow jackets really help them to be seen.”

In Ventura, the flare-up at Citrus Glen is prompting the city and school district to reconsider the crossing guard program. Although administration of crossing guard programs varies from city to city, in Ventura the guards are trained by city police and paid by the school district. The Ventura school district pays $69,000 a year for its 18-guard force.

City and school district officials follow state guidelines in deciding which intersections will get a guard. Citrus Glen doesn’t qualify because the intersection of Darling Road and Jasper Avenue is a four-way stop.

Citrus Glen’s parents ran into trouble when, with the school’s blessing, they began performing crossing duties without undergoing training. The parents initially wore bright orange vests and carried stop signs, but most stopped doing so a couple months ago after they were reprimanded by police.

Now the seven parents take turns patrolling the intersection--some still wearing orange vests but most in regular clothing--and they don’t carry a sign. But they still shepherd children across the street before and after school and have been told by police they could receive a ticket.

City officials say they see the parent volunteers as a valuable resource. The problem, according to the city transportation engineer Tom Mericle, comes down to liability. The city is concerned that parents will demand crossing guards after the current volunteers have moved on. Someone might even bring a lawsuit, Mericle said.

Still, the city is considering revising its guidelines to somehow include the efforts of parents. Mericle said one option might be unpaid “crossing assistants” who stand on the side of the road and tell children when to cross, but not walk with them. This option might satisfy parents without raising legal problems for the city, he said.

But for Carey Nosler, who has a 9-year-old at Citrus Glen and does crossing guard duty every third week, that’s not enough.

“I’m just scared,” she said. “What’s the cost of a child’s life? I think with an adult here there is more control over how they get safely across the street.”

So far, none of the volunteers has gotten a ticket, Mericle said.

By the time Annette Fathi finished a 20-minute crossing duty on a recent day, she had walked 45 kids to the middle of the street, stood there until they made it across and walked back. She wore no crossing guard uniform and held no traffic sign.

“This drives me crazy,” Fathi said. “They won’t let me use [an official] sign . . . so I was thinking of making my own little sign and carrying it on a stick.”