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No crossing guards near 5 schools next year
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More from Conejo ValleyThe use of crossing guards at five elementary schools will be eliminated next year after a vote by the Thousand Oaks City Council at its meeting Tuesday night.
The council voted unanimously to end the use of crossing guards at Cypress, Glenwood, Westlake, Banyan and Walnut schools after a review of the program, which cost $285,000 a year.
Out of 36 crossing guard locations, the five that were cut did not meet the minimum threshold of child pedestrians during busy hours.
At Kimber and Knollwood drives, near Cypress Elementary School, a 2007 count found 315 vehicles during the peak morning commute and one child on foot.
"Are there any plans in place to continue to monitor these intersections," asked Councilwoman Claudia Bill-de la Peña, adding that the numbers of children walking to school may increase with the jump in gas prices.
Public Works Director Mark Watkins said that regular monitoring would take place. He said that in recent years the number of children walking to school has steadily decreased because of more children being driven to campus, the drop in enrollment in local schools and an increase in after-school programs.
Posted by Ms_California on May 29, 2008 at 6:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Why can they not ask the teachers at the school to stand out there and cross the children that need it. They have recess duties why can't this be another duty that is rotated throughout the teaching staff or better yet I would say if your child goes to those schools, step up and be a volunteer crossing guard in the mornings or after school. I am sure that someone has the time to do it. If it meant the safety of the children and I was available I would certainly step up and do the task. Why are parents so uninvolved with their children these days? Just don't understand.
Posted by mikeb6804 on May 29, 2008 at 7:14 a.m. (Suggest removal)
BLACK --- you read like a persecution complex.
Posted by keepin_it_real on May 29, 2008 at 7:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)
ms-cal=I couldn't agree more with you.
black=I don't have a problem with immigration as such. The problem I have with it, are the immigrants who want to come here and live off our hard earned tax dollars, want free food and low cost housing, and free medical. These issues can cause the lack of money for a lot of things. You should be concerned about that too if you work.
Posted by goldeneye on May 29, 2008 at 7:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)
When the first child dies from this decision, who will step up and accept responsbility for this COST/Benefit decision? Mike Watkins, shame on you!
Posted by rebel123 on May 29, 2008 at 8:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Parents can man the cross walks as well. I did that at a busy corner near our bus stop for two years. As to the immigration thing (which is so off topic it's nuts).....I do wonder why people think that they flock here for free or low cost anything? They come here for jobs, pure and simple. Few are getting free medical and most are not getting any medical care short of ER visits when they are indeed seriously ill and that indeed impacts the system. As to free food....where exactly do they get that? The assumption is that all of the illegal immigrants are lining up for social services, which are not available to them without proving legal (or falsified legal) status. The vast majority work for their daily bread just like you and me. The one thing they do get "free" is education for their kids. And yes that does put a burden on our school system to cope with the numbers and other socio-economic problems that come with being a poor immigrant from a third world culture. If we put the onus on the employers who KNOWINGLY hire them and make them provide medical care, housing and schools for their children, it would not be a social issue. But we don't. We spew hatred instead and yell about how they are breaking our laws. Well, so are the employers.
Posted by rebel123 on May 29, 2008 at 8:37 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Given the cuts to schools, I'd much rather see a crossing guard eliminated than another teacher, supplies for classrooms or programs cut. If the intersections that are dangerous, then parents will just have to step up and get a schedule going to get kids across safely. As I stated before, I did that every day for two years at a corner. Parents are going to have to get creative in a lot of ways to mitigate the damage that the Governator is wreaking on our schools. This is just the first of many serious cuts you are going to start seeing.
Posted by hotwildflower on May 29, 2008 at 9:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Hopefully, there will be some volunteers who will step up to assist with covering this.
Not saying these cuts are acceptable, but for the sake of the children, I hope a few people are able to help out.
Posted by FedUp on May 29, 2008 at 9:27 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I am sure there are a handful of stay at home moms or dads who could step up and help here. it is a sad state we are in right now, when a lack of funds, leads to potential childhood disasters.
Black - you are an IDIOT!
Posted by LivinInPoorMansPV on May 29, 2008 at 10:12 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Good ol American greed strikes again.
PARENTS/TEACHERS/HUMANS get off your butt and assist these children while crossing the street.
HEAVEN SAKES!
When I went to ES it was ALL VOLUNTEER! Grandparents/Teachers/Parents/High School Students....anyone!
Posted by holdenon_2000 on May 29, 2008 at 10:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Everyone blames our Governator for the lack of School funding, but the problem started way before he was in office. The problem started when Dems could not balance the budget. Now Arnold is picking up the pieces by making some cuts, and everyone wants to blame him. I'm sure If we had not wasted our budget in the past, Arnold would not be making these cuts. Blame the idiots before Arnold who spent money that we didn't have. Its like running up your credit card on jelly beans, then blaming the high cost of Milk for your financial woes.
Posted by nosco.jack on May 29, 2008 at 10:49 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Do they mean no gaurds or just at certain intersections of the listed schools. There are 4 cross gaurds at Banyan and the ones at Lynn road need to stay. How would they like to have their kids crossing with 60 + mile an hour cars on a curve no less. It's scary even with a gaurd.
Posted by jkboller on May 29, 2008 at 11:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Have parent volunteers...teachers have enough to do with their own time.
Posted by 2smokingbarrels on May 29, 2008 at 12:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The principals of these schools can make it out there and help. Its a good way to interact with those in the community and save money.
Posted by heregoes on May 29, 2008 at 2:27 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Did I read correctly - 1 child on foot during peak commute hours! That sounds about right - I never see anyone walking in TO.
Why would we pay someone to hold up a sign for that? If 1 child is costing $285,000 per year to cross the street - then their parents should be responsible for it.
Posted by SpiderWoman on May 29, 2008 at 2:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Are there any kids that young that walk to school on their own? The kids I see are mostly dropped off by parents or walked to school by parents.
Posted by star on May 29, 2008 at 3:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Prop 13. Yay.
Posted by smithjc on May 29, 2008 at 8:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"Out of 36 crossing guard locations, the five that were cut did not meet the minimum threshold of child pedestrians during busy hours."
what, may i ask, is the "threshold" for acceptable injuries and deaths?
Posted by yourfavrealtor on May 30, 2008 at 1:13 a.m. (Suggest removal)
A lot of issues were touched on here and I believe I would be remiss not to comment on all. First and most importantly, I do not understand a city as "rich" as TO having budget issues - are we not all paying our taxes? Are not housing prices high enough? What on earth has caused our City to have such problems? That's the first question! Secondly, I can say that the crossing guard at our school is AWFUL! She gossips, she hits cars with her stop sign, she makes nasty comments about parents and students, she makes a general nuisance of herself - but does that mean I want my children crossing alone? No! However, where they have her could certainly be adjusted to be similar to what they did in front of Colina with the blinking lights - but it isn't busy enough to warrant her presence, I believe. I think that what they did years ago was fine - having teachers/staff out doing it - which we have now! We currently have 1 city employee and 1 school employee - and it could easily be the school employee and/or parent volunteers. Now in regards to the off topic topic of illegal immigrants - okay, you have to know that anyone can walk into a hospital and not be turned away; there was a study done recently on illegals and the cost to the hospitals. It had something to do with the number of babies delivered by parents with no insurance, 99% of which were here illegally. Yes, this is costing us a ton of money; the children of these illegal immigrants in our schools - these immigrants who are NOT paying income, property, or social security taxes mind you, are draining the school funds as well. The ESL programs are also a drain and what they did years ago worked better - integration - the kids learned faster, were not segregated and the schools saved a ton of money! My next question is the cost to the schools, the city and the state for having to print everything in multiple languages - why is this? They don't do this in Mexico or most other countries so why do we feel compelled to do this here?
Posted by kelly13 on May 31, 2008 at 8:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
In response to "yourfavrealator" and the question about the budget for TO...what about the $100,000.00 per year the city pays to man the illegal day labor site? If that were illimanted (which it should be) it would cover the cost of all 5 crossing guards. Which is more important...our kids or supporting illegal behavior? Obviously Thousand Oaks thinks we want a day labor site.
As to myOpenyun...I respectfully disagree. When we didn't worry about the illegal situation it grew to be the overwhelming problem that it is. It is time to speak up and do something.
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