A call for more crossing guards

Teen’s accident prompts requests for additional student traffic protection

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Oceanside parents and students are joining legislators in calling for more crossing guards in the aftermath of an accident on Foxhurst Road and Harvey Avenue in September that left an Oceanside High School freshman named Lara, in critical condition. In an investigative report on OHS’s student news blog, the Sider Press, OHS junior Margarita Bogdanova found that there are fewer full-time crossing guards due to county budget cuts over the past eight years.

Bogdanova told the Herald that this is an issue that affects her personally. “I’ve walked to school basically the entire time I’ve been going,” she said. At the beginning of the year, when Lara, whose family asked that she be identified only by her first name, was struck by a car, Bogdanova said that it bothered her, adding, “That could have been anyone.”

She began talking with OHS staff and students about the issue. “People started mentioning that there were basically no crossing guards anymore,” she said. “That’s when I started looking at the numbers.”

Since 2011, Nassau County has cut its budget for crossing guards by 21 percent, and the number of full-time crossing guards has been reduced from 331 to 229. In the same period, the number of part-time guards has doubled, according to the county budget.

“It’s not just the crossing guard program that’s disappearing,” Bogdanova wrote in her report. “Traffic cameras, the Walk Safe Initiative, and all the emergency services have faced large decreases since 2011.” she also noted that “The paltry $3 million saved on traffic safety barely dents the ballooning $90 million county debt.”

“There used to be, I think, cops … all down the street, especially on Long Beach Road,” an unidentified student in a group of sophomores walking to school along Atlantic Avenue told Bogdanova, “but now there’s nobody there most of the time. I think I’ve personally almost gotten hit by a car like three times this year already.”

Emily, a fifth-grader, told Bogdanova, “Where there are police and cameras, everyone drives slowly, but when there aren’t, some people don’t even look, and just go as fast as possible.” Her friend Danny added, “A lot of people are nice and let us walk past, but there are drivers that don’t seem to care that kids are crossing the street.”

Bogdanova and her Oceanside School District peers aren’t the only ones who want to see more, not fewer, crossing guards on streets around the district. Oceanside parent Rachel Reyes started an online petition, hosted at gopetition.com, shortly after Lara’s accident, calling for a crossing guard at Long Beach Road and Henrietta Avenue, a heavily trafficked route to Oceanside Middle School. The petition had 117 signatures at press time, mostly Oceansiders, with a few Rockville Centre and Baldwin residents.

“Many Oceanside NY residents do not receive busing to school, yet they live a substantial distance from the middle school or high school,” Reyes wrote on the petition. “I have tried in the past to get a crossing guard on Long Beach Road and Henrietta Avenue. As all of us know, Long Beach Road is a very dangerous street. We want our children safe!”

The petition mirrored Reyes’s previous effort with a 2-year-old change.org petition that garnered 167 signatures. Many of them complained in comments that they lived in places where the school district did not offer busing.

In a letter to Lee Steinberg, an inspector from the Nassau County Police Department’s 4th Precinct, urging the department to study the feasibility of placing a crossing guard at the intersection, State Sen. Todd Kaminsky wrote, “Many families who live west of Long Beach Road do not receive bus services to the Oceanside Middle School. This means that children who walk to school are forced to cross the dangerous Long Beach Road — a major artery for traffic, especially during peak rush hours — on foot. Without a crossing guard or other safety measures, this is an untenable situation for families.”

Steinberg did not return the Herald’s call requesting comment.