In the U.K. they’re called Lollipop Men and Ladies, due to the large steel circle above the poles they wield. In the U.S., these same life-savers go by the unambiguous name of school crossing guards.
But whatever the terminology, Orinda has always needed to rely on volunteers to safely convey its elementary school students across school crosswalks at the beginning and end of regular
school days.
This year, though, that venerable tradition has ended, and after a long process, school crosswalks will now be patrolled by professionals.
One reason is the tragedy that occurred outside Lafayette’s Stanley School in September 2021, when 45-year old volunteer Ashley Dias ended up under the wheels of a Yukon SUV, having been dragged 35 feet along Stanley Boulevard. A 78-year old woman, picking her grandson up from school, had accelerated on a school crossing and plowed into Dias as he rushed to save the life of the child.
And sacrificed his own.
This shocking event highlighted the growing need for dedicated crossing guards to patrol Orinda schools.
This issue came before the Orinda City Council in March when Councilmember Cara Hoxie spoke about a Glorietta student who had been hit by an e-bike in the school crosswalk. There had been parental concerns, she said, “that if a crossing guard had been present, perhaps that accident wouldn’t have occurred.”
Standing in the middle of traffic, armed with just a two-foot sign and hi-vis vest (and a smile, let’s not forget the broad smile) requires commitment and concentration. A brief online search of “dead crossing guards” reveals how many were hit in just the last two years, in places as diverse as New Jersey, Utah, South Carolina and New York, to name but a few.
A brief survey of elementary school parents reveals that this is one of the reasons why schools always find it so difficult to sign up volunteers for this particular undertaking. As one disillusioned mom put it, everyone wants to volunteer to bake cupcakes. Not so many offer to steer kids through crosswalks, come rain or 100-degree temperatures.
When School Superintendent Aida Glimme and City Manager Linda Smith attended the October 2024 meeting of the City/School 2×2 Committee (which, as its name suggests, comprises two council members and two school board members), the question of school crossing guards came up yet again and it was decided that the time had come to get serious.
The committee first evaluated a range of safety efforts they thought might perhaps mitigate the need for professional crossing guards, in the hope of avoiding city funding. Better signage and road striping, parent education and enforcement were all suggested, but after looking at all the available options, it was decided that the only workable solution would be to outsource the problem to a professional crossing guard company.
Such firms carry out a whole slew of background checks, provide training and hold liability coverage to protect the city should there be an incident directly involving a student or guard.
When the issue appeared on the agenda of the March city council meeting, Vice Mayor Brandyn Iverson said that employing an official crossing guard company was “more than just the institutionalization of what has always been a volunteer job,” adding that “part of what helped me come around to supporting this is the fact that it creates structure and civility where right now we have some real problems with both.”
Because, as Iverson went on to imply, the blame for road accidents at school locations isn’t necessarily always the fault of drivers.
“Probably the problem has gotten to the point that we do need that structure,” she continued. “This is as much to educate the kids to be safer about crossing streets, because a lot of the safety issues we’re hearing about concern scooters and bikes and people jumping out of cars and running across the middle of the street.”
So now for the good news – when the current school year began last month, New Jersey-based management company Crossing Guard Services had five guards in place at Orinda’s four elementary school sites (Glorietta has a double entrance/exit). The cost of $118,800 for a 180-day school year will be split 50/50 between the city and the Orinda Union School District (OUSD).
Orinda’s volunteer parents can now concentrate on making cupcakes again, safe in the knowledge that their children are being protected by professionals.
