LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — On Tuesday, the City of Las Vegas added crossing guards to five high schools — bringing their total to nine — plus all of their elementary and middle schools will have crossing guards as we start a new school year.
That begs the question: is that something that's on the radar of other local governments too?
I asked Clark County Commission Chair Michael Naft that last July, after a press conference touting the success of their crossing guard expansion to all county middle schools in addition to elementary schools.
WATCH | Las Vegas adds crossing guards to more high schools. Will Clark County follow?
"We're just a year into the middle school crossing guard program — we know that it's been incredibly effective, for some context it took probably 10 years of advocacy and data collection to get to that point," Naft told me at the time. "I think we also have to look at what the engineering improvements could be, and what the education for both high schoolers and the families and guardians that take them and drop them off could be — all of that plays a role in keeping everybody safe."
Now, more than a year later and days after the city expanded their crossing guard program to more high schools, I asked him that same question again after a back-to-school traffic safety press conference on Thursday morning.
"I am never going to say no to examining and studying things that can potentially save lives," Naft said. "Right now, my focus is on how we can implement each of the 75 recommendations that the Traffic Safety Working group, law enforcement, municipalities and public works department spent a whole year working on."
One of those recommendations was improving traffic safety education as kids head back to school, and a new $100,000 grant from the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix is going to make that possible, according to Naft.
For the first time ever, every public school student — whether at a CCSD or charter school — will get access to traffic safety materials before the school year starts.
"At the end of the day, students and their parents are less focused on which side of the street they live on or which municipal boundary they're in," Naft said. "Let's make this as straightforward as possible, let's be clear with the rules and the laws that we know have the greatest effect on lowering injuries and fatalities, and communicate that to the broadest audience possible."
And now with more crossing guards at places like Centennial High School, I wanted to see how the All City Management Services — also known as the Crossing Guard Company — is doing staffing-wise heading into the school year.
"We typically staff in advance in case those changes are requested, so we had that staffing on hand in anticipation of that," Sergio Mayoral, Team Manager with All City Management Services said on Thursday. "After four hiring events throughout the city, we achieved our goal — we hired 210 crossing guards."
Mayoral says that brings the total number of paid crossing guards across all jurisdictions in the valley to upwards of 1250, and they're fully staffed heading into the new year.
Is there something going on in the northwest valley that you think I should know about? Let me know: Guy@KTNV.com.
