LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Road safety around schools has dominated the conversation recently in the Las Vegas Valley at an unprecedented level.
Improvements coming to Buffalo Drive outside of Arbor View High School in the wake of senior McKenzie Scott's death in May are perhaps the most notable chang — Arbor View parents say they feel the city of Las Vegas has heard their concerns.
While it's a great start, they want to see more.
WATCH | Guy Tannenbaum discusses the call for crossing guards in Las Vegas
"Obviously this is not going to prevent tragedies, but this is going to get the attention of drivers and pedestrians, and hopefully they can work together and start crossing safer," Ashley Brewer said.
Brewer is one of the parents who founded WalkSafelyLV, an advocacy group calling for road safety improvements around local schools after Scott was struck and killed by a suspected DUI driver while she was crossing in a marked crosswalk.
Parents with WalkSafelyLV ended the school year volunteering as crossing guards outside of Arbor View, which they say made a big difference, and is something they'd like to see permanently.
"What we've learned is that crossing guards go through the city, not through the school district and not through Metro," WalkSafelyLV parent Bethany Limov said. "We're in talks with the school and with our group about how we can raise funding for an actual crossing guard to be out here for these kids full time."
This is a story I've been following for months, and Thursday a city of Las Vegas spokesperson told me the results are in for their pilot program exploring the feasibility of expanding crossing guard coverage to include middle and high schools, instead of only elementary schools.
Feedback showed drivers and pedestrians followed traffic laws better and people felt more comfortable when a crossing guard was present over the length of the pilot program at Gibson Middle School and Cimarron-Memorial High School.
However, the city says funding for crossing guards beyond elementary schools isn't allocated in the city's current budget, which runs through next June.
To put it into perspective, the city budgets $2.87 million per year for crossing guards as it stands now, and that's just for elementary schools.
But expanding crossing guards has been successful in unincorporated Clark County. At a Thursday press conference, Commissioner Michael Naft told reporters in the first year of the county adding crossing guards to middle schools, crashes involving middle school students went down 69%.
That begs the question: will the county bring crossing guards to high schools in the future too?
"Well we're just a year into the middle school crossing guard program, and we know it's been incredibly effective," Naft told Channel 13 in an interview. "For context, it took about ten years of advocacy and data collection to get to that point."
Naft said everything is on the table when it comes to protecting students in Clark County.
"I think we also have to look at what those engineering improvements can be, what the education for both high schoolers and their families and guardians that take them and drop them off can be," Naft said. "All of that plays a role in keeping everybody safe."
Clark County School District Superintendent Jhone Ebert said the district is talking with all municipalities about expanding crossing guards, after the success they've seen in middle schools.
"No one person can do this work alone," Ebert said. "It takes the parents, it takes the mayors, it takes everyone to lift up our students so they can be successful."
That's echoed by parents at Arbor View, who plan on being back out volunteering as crossing guards when the new school year begins in August.
"We're just trying to do little bits to keep the community safe," Brewer told Channel 13.
In the meantime, Clark County needs to hire dozens of crossing guards before the school year begins, with pay starting at $17 per hour.
Clark County and The Crossing Guard Company will be holding hiring events all over the valley next week, which you can learn more about by clicking here.
