Marin agency resets school crossing guard sites

Fewer school crossing guards will be posted in San Rafael, Corte Madera and Novato in the fall.

The board governing the Transportation Authority of Marin approved a plan Thursday to scale back the number of crossing guard sites to the original threshold of 96 at the start of the new school year in order to preserve the longevity of its $2.2 million program.

Another reduction to 85 or fewer sites could be made in 2026 if staff can’t find more funding to sustain the same number of guards as program expenses continue to rise.

The popular crossing guard program has supporters, some of whom wrote letters to the board and who spoke at the Thursday meeting, asking that no sites be cut next year.

“The crossing guard is much more than just about keeping students safe as they walk and bike to school,” said Heather McPhail Sridharan, a candidate for Marin County Supervisor District 2 and volunteer coordinator of the Kentfield Safe Routes to Schools. “The program also plays a key role in reducing traffic throughout Marin and lowering our county’s greenhouse gas emissions.”

McPhail Sridharan said guards are “beloved members of our community” and reducing their numbers “is the wrong direction to be going.”

Last year, the board decided to fund 104 sites for the 2023-24 school year to preserve some familiar crossings that were set to be cut from the list after all sites had been reevaluated and reranked.

The program is not designed to sustain 104 sites, officials said.

“This is not a reduction, this is maintenance of what we’ve had,” said Mill Valley City Councilmember Urban Carmel, a TAM board member. “This program has grown and it’s maintaining its size. It’s not sustainable if you make it bigger than that.”

Sites that will not have guards for the next school year include Corte Madera Avenue and Tamalpais Drive and Redwood Avenue in Corte Madera and Center Road and Diablo Avenue in Novato.

Three crossings that are part of the Miller Creek School District in San Rafael also will be discontinued. Those ate Mount Shasta Drive and Idylberry Road; Marinwood Avenue and Miller Creek Road; and Nova Albion Way and Montecillo Road. San Rafael City Schools sites include Knight Drive and Ashwood Court as well as Woodland Avenue and Lovell Avenue.

TAM also will no longer fund the Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and Lagunitas Road crossing serving Ross School. However, the Ross School District has indicated it intends to fund a guard there.

The program is funded by Measure B and Measure AA tax revenues.

In 2018, the Transportation Authority of Marin established a threshold of 96 crossing guards based on the available funding, said Dan Cherrier, project manager at the agency. The sites are selected based on pedestrian and vehicle counts, sight lines, speed limits, the history of crashes and other safety metrics, Cherrier said.

To illustrate the difference between a high-ranking site versus a lower-ranking site, Cherrier showed video clips of two intersections.

In the low-ranking Nova Albion Way crossing at Oleander Drive in San Rafael, a video shows a pair of cyclists cross the intersection and another two riding through.

In the high-ranking crossing at Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and Glen Drive near White Hill Middle School, “every time the guard comes out there is a big sea of students that cross,” Cherrier said.

By the time the guard gets back to the sidewalk, another wave of students is ready to cross, Cherrier said.

If the agency continued to fund the 104 crossing guard sites, the program’s reserves would be exhausted during the 2026-27 school year, Cherrier said. In order for the program to survive, the number of guards would be reset to 77, which would be a shock to school community, he said.

On top of that, costs are rising. Recent changes to the state minimum wage are one of the biggest factors. The billing rate for a guard jumped from $27.60 in August 2023 to $33.98 in April, staff said.

TAM board member Eric Lucan, a Marin County supervisor, said the easy thing to do would be to approve funding for 104 guards and let a future board worry about the finances.

“The responsible thing to do is to level set this,” Lucan said. “I don’t want to create a problem for a future TAM board to figure out at a later date. This is the right decision to do. We have all the data, so let’s make a responsible decision.”

Marin County Supervisor Mary Sackett pointed out that the Miller Creek School District, which will have three fewer guards as part of the approval, also lost bus service this year. That happened before TAM staff reranked the crossing sites.

“Are we going to remain nimble enough to react to the foreseeable and the unforeseen things that come our way to put things back in the list?” Sackett asked staff.

Cherrier said that is possible.

Valerie Pitts, interim superintendent of the Miller Creek School District, thanked the agency for its attention and collaboration on the important issue. She said school officials look forward to working with staff about educating families “to make sure that we can ensure the safety of our students as they come and go from school.”

“We completely understand that the program is important to the community and that is in fact part of the reason we are so focused on making it sustainable into the future,” said Anne Richman, executive director of TAM.

The approval also sets a new site reevaluation process that is expected to save the agency about $25,000 a year, Cherrier said.

“As with most things, and even with all the support of the program, there is not unlimited funding,” said Brian Colbert, a San Anselmo councilmember who is chair of the TAM board and also a candidate for the Marin County District 2 supervisor seat.

“But I think the recommendation has struck an appropriate balance between the two short-term needs and making the program as sustainable as possible in the longer term,” he said.