Jan. 22, 2007
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

WHAT'S YOUR SIGN?

Our reporter learns lesson while working as a school crossing guard

My looks have never stopped traffic before. Then again, I've never worn a reflective vest and made like the Statue of Liberty with a stop sign.

"You're standing in the middle of the crosswalk and the kids have to walk around you!" Carolyn Lockhart shouts from the northwest corner of the Cosine Elementary School grounds in North Las Vegas.

I'm manning Simmons Street and Hammer Lane and discovering a new rule every time I return to the curb and Lockhart tells me I've broken it.

This time, it's neglecting to place my body between the students and the cars I've halted for them.

"If you're on Miss Carolyn's corner, you're going to do it correctly," the North Las Vegas resident continues.

The 97 crossing guards in this fast-growing city are civilian police department employees. They work during the hour before the morning bell, and the half-hour following the afternoon one. (Crossers stagnate more walking to school than from it.) The pay is $9 per hour.

"And the cars might stop for you a little better if you hold your stop sign up when you leave the sidewalk instead of when you get into the middle of the street," Lockhart says.

I can't decide who's scarier — the drivers, about a quarter of whom appear to be on cell phones, or Lockhart. She not only attended the Citizen's Police Academy — a North Las Vegas program providing police training to civilians — but volunteered to be stun-gunned.

"I just raised my hand when they asked," Lockhart told me earlier, likening the Taser sensation to "a horse kicking me in the chest." (Whenever cadets refuse to be shocked, they're told all about the 63-year-old woman who's braver than them.)

Like most crossing guards, Lockhart is retired. She worked for the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in Sacramento, Calif., for 32 years before moving to the valley in 1999.

"I wanted to do nothing in my retirement," she says. "But you can't clean every day. So a year later, I decided to do this job because it allows me to interact with children."

Lockhart left an 8-year-old grandson back in California. "I miss him," she says. "I go every Christmas, but it's very hard."

Crossing Guard Coordinator Ron Santos starts guards out as substitutes for their colleagues who call in sick, eventually graduating them to permanent assignments. Lockhart transferred from her original corner because this one has more children. She knows all of them by first names. She fears she might even know them too well.

"This one little girl came up and asked, "Miss Carolyn, do you wonder where my daddy's truck is?' " she recalls.

Her father's house is close to this intersection.

"She says, 'Well, he had to move it, because he put his girlfriend out and she said she was gonna break all of the windows out of the truck and cut the tires off."

"I'm like, OK, sweetie," Lockhart says.

This is among the rare jobs I feel overqualified for. The only requirements are a valid Nevada driver's license, and senses and appendages that function. Still, training takes about a week, which my schedule never allows. So Santos instead agreed to let me screen a video and observe Lockhart's morning shift, from 7 to 8 a.m.

"I have a problem when he sends me a guard he tells me is trained!" Lockhart snapped upon meeting me.

What I see are well-behaved kids bunching up, waiting silently to duplicate the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album cover. Lockhart rarely steps off the curb for fewer than four of them at a time, thereby minimizing traffic disruptions.

"You've got to let the kids know who's boss," Lockhart says. "They know when Miss Carolyn's the crossing guard, they come and sit on the fence because they know they're gonna wait a little bit."

During my shift, from 3 to 3:30 p.m., a similar confidence exists in their young minds about who's boss.

"I want the cars to stop right now!" yells a tyke with a backpack and jean jacket.

"You're terrible!" screams little Joshua.

Santos does not disagree with little Joshua. He says I stopped one lane of cars way too short.

"Look for a better traffic gap," he says, adding that "this is definitely not standard ops."

"My warm and fuzzies have gone away," he continues, cupping his head.

My command over traffic is even less impressive than it is over children. Although I never fail to stop the vehicles coming from my left, some of the ones coming from my right confuse my stop sign for a starting flag.

"Those cars were gonna run over you!" Lockhart yells.

But even Lockhart has trouble with this intersection. Santos calls it "one of the most dangerous" in the city, because of its long width (100 feet), lack of a stop sign or light, and heavy traffic (8,000 vehicles per day, according to a June 2005 warrant study).

When the yellow lights on the school-zone sign just north of us are flashing, as they are now, traffic should not exceed 25 mph.

"But they don't care about that flashing light," Lockhart says. "They don't care about these little kids. All they care about is getting where they're going."

In 1999, Shirley Rizzo, a 72-year-old Henderson crossing guard, was killed by a Ford Mustang driven by a 16-year-old girl who said she was blinded by glare. According to Santos, no North Las Vegas collision has been associated with crossing guard duties. But one gray SUV seems intent on breaking that record (and me). It whooshes by at about 50 mph, so close that the gust bends my sign downward.

Entering an intersection where a crossing guard has stopped traffic is a misdemeanor violation of North Las Vegas Ordinance 10.20.490, punishable by as many as six months in jail or a fine of as much as $500.

Crossing guards are supposed to report violations to the police, who decide what action to take.

"We try to get a license plate, plus a description of the car and the color," Lockhart says, "then we send a letter. But it's very hard."

Santos suggests that the SUV driver might have had a valid excuse, however.

"SUV's are probably too high up to see you," he says, smiling.

Fear and Loafing appears every Monday in the Living section. Levitan's previous adventures can be found at www.fearandloafing.com.