Charter school west of Boynton sought help for kids crossing busy intersection, to no avail

Huddled at the corner of Lyons Road and Boynton Beach Boulevard on most school day afternoons are 10 to 15 middle and high school students who are expected to cross multiple lanes of traffic by themselves.

The intersection has up to eight lanes at its widest point. Its speed limit is 45 miles per hour, and the Florida Department of Transportation reports that more than 11,400 vehicles cross its threshold each day.

But for the students from Somerset Academy Canyons Charter School, there's no crossing guard.

One Boynton Beach woman's fight to get crossing guards at the intersection has exposed a blind spot for governmental agencies: Although charter schools are public schools run by private entities, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office doesn't provide crossing guards for charters like it does for traditional public schools.

Somerset Academy releases its 1,600 students around 2:45 p.m. each day — 45 minutes after Sunset Palms Elementary and more than an hour before West Boynton Middle School, both of which are traditional public schools less than a mile east on Boynton Beach Boulevard.

Students report that the traditional schools have crossing guards at Lyons and Boynton Beach Boulevard later in the day, but there's at least an hourlong period where the intersection is unsupervised after Somerset students are released.

That's what keeps Mikki Isackson up at night.

She's not a parent of one of the students, but a retired grandmother of three who frequents the intersection on the way home from her daughter's house. She first noticed students crossing the street unsupervised in November.

"Every time I watch these kids cross that street, it breaks my heart," she said. "I want them to be safe."

Several encounters at the intersection motivated her to send mass emails to county elected officials, school district employees, elected school board members, sheriff's office staff and Somerset Academy Canyons Principal George Groezinger in November. The intersection in question is in an unincorporated part of Palm Beach County.

Isackson said several county agencies declined responsibility, so she offered to pay for the crossing guards herself, a cost she calculates to be about $300 per week.

"All these agencies were going to go back and forth discussing who should be responsible," she said. "It’s $300 per week for crossing guards, really? For somebody’s life. It doesn’t compute in my head."

Who should pay for charter schools' crossing guards?

Palm Beach County has 49 charter schools. About 30 of them are within 1.5 miles of a traditional school and have common intersections that students from both schools cross to get to campus.

In some cases, including at Somerset Academy Canyons, charter school starting times line up with starting times for traditional schools in the morning, but dismissal times are different. That means that students may have a crossing guard in the morning but not in the afternoon.

While crossing guards work to protect students, they're not school district employees or police officers. Crossing guards are civilian employees of the sheriff's office.

And that's where the challenge begins.

State law requires the county's law enforcement agency to train and pay crossing guards, but the law stops short of requiring the same treatment for charter schools.

Last year, the sheriff's office spent $8 million on school crossing guards at traditional schools, according to spokesperson Teri Barbera. Crossing guards are paid $15.60 per hour, and the job is popular with retirees and college students who can take early morning and early afternoon shifts. Applicants are required to take a training course from the Florida Department of Transportation before starting work.

Charter schools elsewhere in Florida have gotten creative to keep students safe.

In Oak Hill, a small town south of Daytona Beach, volunteer crossing guards have stepped in to help students cross U.S. 1 since 2014. Nearly 400 students attend the Burns Science and Technology Charter School, which sits just southeast of the town's only flashing traffic light.

In The Villages, commissioners were split last summer on whether to provide city funding to hire crossing guards near a new charter school serving a 7,000-home development. Wildwood commissioner Joe Elliott made a motion to pay for seven crossing guards, calling the safety of children the city's obligation, The Villages News reported.

But Mayor Ed Wolf said the city would not able to launch the training program in the month before the schools opened. Elliott's motion failed on a vote of 2-2.

“There is a lot more than it looks like on the surface,” Wolf said.

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Somerset Academy principal Groezinger, who has worked at the school for seven years, weighed in on the issue in an email thread to county officials.

"I have tried for several years to secure crossing guards for the Boynton Beach/Lyons Road intersection," he wrote. "Our parents and community members continually ask about getting crossing guards there when our students arrive and are dismissed. (It) appears priority is given to public elementary and middle schools in the county, not to Charter-Schools."

Groezinger did not detail his attempts to get crossing guards, nor did he address why the school cannot pay for them. He did not return requests for comment from The Palm Beach Post.

'This is all wrong'

Sheriff's office traffic safety officials decide where to place crossing guards based on how many children live within two miles of a school, the area defined by Florida law where students are not eligible to ride a bus.

Parents can also request a crossing guard be stationed at a specific intersection, but Barbera said that a request does not guarantee someone will be placed there.

Currently, the sheriff's office has 16 open positions for school crossing guards, meaning the 394-person force is relatively well-staffed. Vacancies have been as high as 70 unfilled jobs in recent years.

Although Isackson has offered to pay for crossing guards from her own pocket, she fears she's hit a dead end after getting little help from county leaders.

"Nobody is taking ownership," she said. "I don’t care whose budget it comes out of. Ultimately everybody pays taxes and it should be covered. This is all wrong."

Katherine Kokal is a journalist covering education at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at kkokal@pbpost.com. Help support our work, subscribe today!

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Who should pay for charter school crossing guards in Palm Beach County?