A yellow school road sign. (© Can Stock Photo Inc. / fozrocket)A yellow school road sign. (© Can Stock Photo Inc. / fozrocket)
Chatham

Crossing Guards In Place Across CK

The Municipality of Chatham-Kent has some good news for students who will be walking to school next week.

All 12 of the school crossings in Chatham-Kent that employed crossing guards last year will have them in place for the first day of class.

The municipality's Director of Customer Services Leanne Segeren-Swayze says they just filled the last two full-time positions this week.

"We have been very fortunate that people have come forward that were interested in those positions because there was a period of time where we were lacking applicants," says Segeren-Swayze.

Even though the municipality has filled all of the full-time spots, officials are still asking more people to help out.

"We are still looking for three backup positions because in a situation where a crossing guard is not able to come in, we like to be able to call in a backup person just to ensure that we have the coverage," says Segeren-Swayze.

The openings are in Wheatley, Wallaceburg, and Tilbury.

All of the crossing guard positions are set to be phased out later this year and either replaced with new pedestrian crossings or eliminated entirely.

Segeren-Swayze says there are two crossings in Chatham, two in Ridgetown, and one in Wallaceburg that won't have a crossing guard or an official pedestrian crossing installed come December.

A previous report to council stated that four of those crossings aren't busy enough to warrant a new crossing while one of them already has an all-way stop.

RELATED: Several Proposals For Safe School Crossings

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