Building a Better Crossing Guard Program
School crossing guards play an important role in helping students get to and from school safely. That's why I supported the City's first comprehensive, citywide evaluation of the crossing guard program. For many years, individual locations had been added over time, but the program itself had never been evaluated as a whole.
Historically, crossing guards were added one intersection at a time through individual City Council actions. The City's core budget permanently funded only 11 crossing guard locations, with additional positions approved each year through one-time budget decision packages. While well intentioned, this approach meant locations were not reevaluated, even as neighborhoods, school enrollment, and traffic patterns changed over time. In many cases, decisions were made incrementally rather than through a comprehensive analysis of citywide need. As part of this review, the City made a permanent commitment to increase the core program from 11 to 18 funded crossing guard locations, providing a more stable and sustainable foundation for the program going forward.
Not surprisingly, our community has changes over time. In my own neighborhood around Franklin Park, for example, an area that once had relatively few school-aged children now has many young families walking and biking to school every day. Similar changes have occurred throughout Redondo Beach, yet the crossing guard program had never been reassessed to reflect those evolving conditions.
The program also became increasingly difficult and expensive to operate. Following the pandemic, many of the retired residents who had traditionally served as crossing guards chose not to return. The City increased wages and contracted with an outside staffing agency, but vacancies remained a persistent challenge. Last school year alone, there were more than 700 absences across the City's 27 crossing guard locations. Those absences were routinely backfilled by police, municipal, code enforcement, and traffic officers, pulling them away from other important public safety responsibilities.
Recruiting crossing guards is also more challenging than many people realize. The work is split between a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon, with varying schedules for minimum days and other school calendar changes. Just as importantly, these positions require extensive background checks, as they should. Crossing guards interact with many of the same students every day, often getting to know them by name, recognizing their routines, and becoming trusted adults in their daily lives. We should expect a thorough screening process for individuals entrusted with that responsibility, and that naturally limits the pool of qualified applicants.
I also understand that change can be difficult, especially for families who have become accustomed to seeing a crossing guard at a particular intersection. As both a parent and a councilmember, I appreciate those concerns. This review was never about reducing our commitment to student safety. It was about ensuring we have a program that is reliable, data-driven, financially sustainable, and responsive to the needs of our community, today and in the future.
Rather than continue managing the program the same way, the City formed a working group consisting of City Council members, our Traffic Engineer, Police Department leadership, and consulted with Redondo Beach Unified School District to evaluate the program from the ground up.
Our goals were straightforward:
Provide reliable staffing. The City's ongoing investment in the program has increased significantly, with the core budget growing from funding 11 crossing guard locations to 18 permanent locations. Working with the Police Department, we determined that 18 locations could be consistently staffed, including substitute coverage, so families can count on a crossing guard being present every school day without diverting police personnel from other public safety responsibilities. See the map of the locations for crossing guards for the upcoming school year here.
Ensure every school is served. Working with the School District, we identified the locations that best serve each campus and its surrounding walking routes.
Use data to drive decisions. We collected pedestrian, bicycle, e-bike, and vehicle counts at every location and evaluated the complexity of each intersection. The goal is to place crossing guards where there is the greatest need while identifying opportunities for permanent traffic calming improvements.
Improve safety beyond school hours. Crossing guards are one layer of safety, but our long-term objective is safer intersections 24 hours a day. As traffic studies identify opportunities, we are implementing engineering improvements and traffic calming measures where feasible because the safest intersection is one that protects everyone, whether or not a crossing guard is present.
Encourage safer driving and riding habits. Many of the concerns families experience during school arrival and dismissal are driven by unsafe behaviors, not by the intersections themselves. Drivers speeding, failing to yield, making illegal maneuvers, or e-bike riders ignoring the rules of the road create unnecessary conflicts. The Redondo Beach Police Department will continue targeted traffic enforcement to improve compliance and reinforce safe habits around our schools.
Just as importantly, I do not want this program to become stagnant again. Community needs will continue to evolve, and our crossing guard program should evolve with them.
I believe the program should be reviewed annually using objective data, engineering analysis, and meaningful community input. As we discuss the future evaluation process at our next City Council meeting, I will advocate for involving our City commissions, whose members provide valuable resident perspectives and a transparent forum for community input. Their participation will ensure residents continue to have a voice while helping keep these decisions grounded in objective data and public safety rather than political considerations.
Our neighborhoods will continue to change. Families move in, schools grow, travel patterns evolve, and new infrastructure is built. Our crossing guard program should be responsive to those changes.
Ultimately, our goal is bigger than crossing guards. We want Redondo Beach to be a city where families feel comfortable walking and biking, where students can travel safely to school, and where our streets are designed to support safe mobility for everyone, not just during school hours, but every day of the year.
