Almost a fifth of San Francisco’s schools have started the education year without the protection of crosswalk guards, the city’s Municipal Transportation Agency said.
The cause of the staffing shortage is a citywide slowdown in hiring and higher-than-usual turnover, SFMTA spokeswoman Parisa Safarzadeh said in a news release.
Seventeen public schools and four private schools, or 18.8% of school sites, that had a crossing guard last year don’t have one this year, Safarzadeh said.
At 91 public and private schools, SFMTA has 155 crossing guards on duty, she said.
“We know how vital our crossing guards are to students and families, and we recognize the concerns that parents, caregivers, and school communities have raised about student safety,” Safarzadeh said. “Despite ongoing budget constraints, SFMTA is making crossing guard staffing a top priority and is moving quickly to restore coverage to last year’s levels.”
Beginning Tuesday, the MTA planned to reassign its existing crossing guards to cover more locations, focusing on peak arrival and dismissal times, she said. That may mean a single guard will cover multiple corners, Safarzadeh said.
The MTA also plans to deploy other members of its staff to fill vacancies until new guards are hired, she said.
The agency will increase hiring from existing candidate pools and accelerate training “so new crossing guards can be in place by the end of the year,” Safarzadeh said.
The MTA said it welcomes PTA’s and parents interested in organizing through a volunteer program in coordination with the San Francisco Unified School District.