For nearly a half century, Sadie Abraham of Charleston has consistently helped hundreds of school children safely cross busy intersections on the way to school and into life.
Many of those students later graduated from college and then were married, but they returned to find Abraham still at Rutledge Avenue and Moultrie Street doing a job she began in August 1975.
“I love children and people. It makes me feel so good” to stay connected with the students, Abraham told the Charleston City Paper. “I am so proud of them. At least I had my hand in doing something with them.”
When the new school year began in August, Abraham and more than four dozen school crossing guards in Charleston County returned to familiar posts, but their employer changed over the summer.
The Charleston County School District is now tasked with supervising the yellow-vested crossing guards after the Charleston County Sheriff’s Department handed the district that responsibility.
The district has budgeted $1.6 million for the 2023-24 fiscal year to support the crossing guard program, said school district spokesman Andy Pruitt.
“This includes all associated costs including salaries, benefits and fuel and equipment for crossing guard supervisors,” he said. “Since this is a new program for the district, the amount may be adjusted in subsequent years based on actual costs.”
In August 2022, the sheriff’s department told the district it would end its crossing guard program, Pruitt said.
Sheriff’s department spokesperson Amber R. Allen said, “We felt it was more appropriate for the school district to handle [the crossing guard program]. We were one of the very few law enforcement agencies that took on that responsibility and most school districts have their own.” The department perated the program for about 45 years, she said.
The agencies had multiple talks that began earlier this year that led to a mutual agreement, she said. The sheriff’s department, she added, was not concerned about passing the program’s cost to the school district. “They were willing to take it on,” she said.
“When we were making these arrangements we wanted to make sure the folks we employed were absorbed into the school district, and there might have been some folks who didn’t want to do it anymore,” Allen said.
Pruitt said, “Crossing guards from the sheriff’s office were provided with the opportunity to apply for positions with the school district. Applicants were screened through the district’s selection process.”
A few openings remain
The district employs 56 guards. Due to traffic patterns and the configuration of some intersections some schools have more than one crossing guard, each of whom is stationed at one of more than 30 schools across the county, Pruitt said.
The district has 88 schools and programs, including nine charter schools. Some schools have more than one guard due to traffic flow or the configuration of an intersection, Pruitt said.
“Charter schools are not in the crossing guard program,” he added. “They are responsible for their crossing guards.”
Richard Dean, security operations manager for the district’s crossing guard program, said he’s trying to fill one opening in Mount Pleasant and three positions at Rutledge Avenue and Fishburne Street in Charleston. Dean said he has two candidates for that location that might be in place in two weeks.
Community organizer Audrey Lisbon said she wants to help the district fill the part-time positions at Rutledge and Fishburne.
“I am really not happy about that,” said Lisbon, president of the Westside Neighborhood Association. “What’s the reason why [the sheriff’s department] discontinued with this program of helping with the crossing guards because now there is a dire need for them?”
She said more guards are needed for the busy intersections along the Septima P. Clark Parkway. Those guards, she said, have been missing for two years.
“They took crossing guards away from the most dangerous spots,” Libson said. “There are speeders on the [Septima P. Clark Parkway] trying to beat the [traffic] light.”
The S.C. Department of Transportation is currently conducting the second study in five years to find safer ways to walk across the parkway where eight pedestrians have been struck and killed since 2012.
The crossing guard issue, she added, will be discussed at the association’s 6:30 p.m. meeting Sept. 28, at the Arthur W. Christopher Community Center.
Trying to make a difference
Lisbon said she has sent flyers to several churches, masonic, civic and fraternal organizations and plans to send more throughout the community to recruit crossing guards for her neighborhood and elsewhere.
“There used to be a time when you had parents who volunteered to help children across the street where they didn’t have a crossing guard,” Lisbon said.
“But we now have a lot of non-working mothers who now live in this area because of gentrification,” she said, “so why can’t they volunteer their time to help children cross the street?”
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No newspaper subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations from downtown to North Charleston to Johns Island to Summerville to Mount Pleasant.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.