Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2005 | 7:53 a.m.
Many parents and grandparents have taken matters into their own hands in response to the perennial shortage of school crossing guards. Elnoria Hawkins is typical of adult family members who can't bear to see a small child walking alone along busy streets.
In an interview with Las Vegas Sun reporter David Kihara this week, she talked about meeting her 5-year-old granddaughter every day after school, and taking her hand. "I wouldn't feel safe letting her walk home on her own. There are no crossing guards here. It's not fair to the kids."
Hawkins' granddaughter attends Quannah McCall Elementary School in North Las Vegas. It is one of two elementary schools in the Clark County School District that has no assigned crossing guards (the other is Jo Mackey, also in North Las Vegas). Neither school qualifies for guards because area traffic is considered low. Hawkins, however, believes the area's streets are much too busy for a 5-year-old to be navigating alone.
Crossing guards are not the School District's responsibility. Rather, they are hired by the police departments -- for elementary schools only.
Metro Police has 135 schools within its jurisdiction, the Henderson Police Department has 35 and North Las Vegas has 25. As of this week, Metro had 34 vacant crossing-guard positions, Henderson none and North Las Vegas one.
But the total budgeted number of crossing guards falls short of the need, a fact acknowledged by parents, schools and even the police. The way to gauge the shortage is to get a list from the police of how many crossing guards are assigned to each school, and then check the schools' enrollments, the number of nearby busy intersections and any related accident statistics.
Unfortunately, the police are not cooperating, or worse, they do not know. Meredith Turner, a leader of a community group concerned about crossing-guard shortages, was stymied trying to get such lists from the police. The Sun encountered the same problem.
The reality of shortages is beyond dispute. Schools are constantly requesting more guards; many are putting their own staff members to work and dozens of parents and grandparents hit the streets every day to help out. A lot of people want to help plan for the day when there are enough crossing guards.
In our view, the police departments, instead of obstructing concerned adults, should be forthright with any information that is sought.
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