The City of Santa Ana opted to replace its current school crossing guard program with a volunteer system after the city clashed with the Santa Ana Unified School District over which entity should pay for the service for school children.
Faced with a decision to renew its $7.7 million crossing guard program for the next five years, councilors instead voted 5–2 to develop a volunteer program—with Councilors Jessie Lopez and Benjamin Vasquez dissenting.
The current program provides 55 crossing guards for 40 elementary schools in the Tustin, Santa Ana, and Garden Grove unified school districts.
The volunteer program will extend to the district’s eight elementary charter schools and put individual schools and school districts in charge of overseeing their own campuses….