The mayor’s recent proposal to hire 400 more School Crossing Guards marked a bittersweet triumph for the union, the guards and the children they protect. The announcement came only days after the Jan. 19 accident that took the life of Crossing Guard Betty Davis as she headed to work to protect the lives of students.

The mayor’s $39 billion preliminary spending plan for the 2002 fiscal year, which begins July 1, includes $12 million to pay for the new Crossing Guards and hire 800 School Safety Officers.

His 10-year capital spending plan, which was also released Jan. 25, targets $13 billion for building new schools, including funds for 13 new schools with about 20,000 classroom seats in 2002.

“With the rapid growth of the city’s school population, Local 372 has constantly pressed for hiring School Crossing Guards and other workers who provide the support services that are vital to the educational mission of the schools,” said Local 372 President Veronica Montgomery-Costa.

Adding new schools will “lead to more jobs for our members in all job titles,” she said.

Saving children’s lives
Additional School Crossing Guards are needed especially at those schools that have experienced significant growth in the last decade, added Ms. Montgomery-Costa. “Hiring Crossing Guards is necessary to keep the number of accidents involving school-age children from rising sharply,” she said.

Effie Tucker, chair of the local’s School Crossing Guard Chapter, said vacant positions have often gone unfilled for too long. “Every school needs to have sufficient crossing guards to protect the kids,” she said. The guards do a lot more than help students cross the streets safely, she explained. “They serve as the eyes and ears of the police,” protecting the children and their communities from crime.

Ms. Tucker predicted that the new slots would be filled quickly. “People are interested in doing this job, especially people from the neighborhoods where we work,” she said. “They always ask us how to apply for a job and where to go for an application.”

The preliminary budget, a preview of the official executive budget that the mayor will submit in April, also includes millions of dollars for what he calls “Enhancing Instruction.”

• $9 million for Project English, a 20-weekend language program for some 38,600 students.
  
  
• $25 million for Project Science, a 40-weekend science program for 45,300 eighth grade and high school students.
  
  
• $23 million to expand summer school by 50,000 students, bringing the total to 320,000 students.
  
  
• $31.5 million to fund classroom libraries in all 21,000 K-8 classrooms.
  

Ms. Montgomery-Costa pointed out that programs like these would further increase the need for support staff. Additional hiring in Local 372 titles could result from the Instruction Enhancement plan, the school security increase, new funding for in-school suspension centers and the plan in the preliminary budget for three Second Opportunity Schools.

Vital support staff
“We can expect that many more SAPIS, family workers, lunchroom aides, and others will be needed to help such plans succeed,” she added.

The mayor also proposed turning over five poorly performing schools to a private education company, Edison Schools, Inc., whose New York City division is headed by the Rev. Floyd Flake.

Many parents, teachers and union members have criticized the proposal as a sellout of public education. And according to many experts, the company has been inconsistent at best in achieving progress in under-performing schools.

As of last year, the Board of Education had placed up to 97 schools in a special category for under-achieving schools, Schools Under Registration Review, or SURR. Under the current proposal, five of these would be turned over to Edison.