Forty-five school crossing guards were sworn into duty at the Montclair Municipal Building last week at a ceremony attended by their supervisor, Officer John Timchak, Mayor Jerry Fried, and a handful of well-wishers and walking advocates including yours truly.

When school (finally!) starts next Monday these able-bodied citizens in good standing will be at their posts twice a day, morning and afternoon, working to ensure the safety of every child who walks to school in our town.

Timchak characterized the affable group as men and women in good moral standing who are physically able to tolerate the cold and other inclement weather while understanding and carrying out all safety regulations and reporting any hazards that children might encounter as they walk to and from school.

“You’re literally saving kids lives every morning,” Fried told the crowd, which humbly chuckled at the mayor’s remarks.

While no one in town knows exactly how many kids walk to school each day, everyone from BikeWalk Montclair representative Dickson Lane to Edgemont PTA health and wellness liaison Jennifer Hanawald agreed getting more kids to walk to school in town is a priority.

“We want to shift the emphasis from driving to walking and biking to school,” Hanawald said, pointing to National Walk to School Day on October 6th as a target for her group’s advocacy efforts.

I used to walk to school when I was a kid. I lived two blocks from my Long Island elementary school and had to cross School Street to reach my destination. I didn’t have a backpack because I had no need for one, and I didn’t envy the kids who had to ride the school bus —  mostly because I got carsick, but also because I loved walking to school. I loved kicking a stone in front of me as I ambled down Lincoln Avenue and I loved waiting at the corner for my best friend, Marcy Powers, to come out and join me for the last half block until we said goodbye and went into our separate doors. On fish stick and pizza day I ate lunch in the cafeteria but on any given weekday I might be found walking home at mid-day for a freshly-made English muffin pizza or tuna melt my mother put under the broiler as I came in the front door.

In Montclair, particularly because of our magnet school-choice program, kids don’t go to their neighborhood schools, which means they’re either driven or take the bus. I’m not here to question the system that’s served my children so well, but it does make me happy to look out my front door on school mornings and see some of the young kids on my block skipping along, lunch bag in hand, on their way to the closest elementary school. And it certainly makes me glad to know that folks like Robert Haley, who’s going into his sixth year as a crossing guard, and Sharon Johnson, who’s doing her third round this year, enjoy their jobs and take them seriously.

“I’m going to be doing this until I can’t do it anymore,” Haley told me. “It’s a great job, I love it.”

I used to walk to school when I was a kid. I lived two blocks from my Long Island elementary school and had to cross School Street to reach my destination. I didn’t have a backpack because I had no need for one, and I didn’t envy the kids who had to ride the school bus —  mostly because I got carsick but also because I loved walking to school. I loved kicking a stone in front of me as I ambled down Lincoln Avenue and I loved waiting at the corner for my best friend, Marcy Powers, to come out and join me for the last half block until we said goodbye and went into our separate doors. On fish stick and pizza day I ate lunch in the cafeteria but on any given weekday I might be found walking home at mid-day for a freshly-made English muffin pizza or tuna melt my mother put under the broiler as I came in the front door.

In Montclair, particularly because of our magnet school-choice program, kids don’t go to their neighborhood schools, which means they’re either driven or take the bus. I’m not here to question the system that’s served my children so well, but it does make me happy to look out my front door on school mornings and see some of the young kids on my block skipping along, lunch bag in hand, on their way to the closest elementary school. And it certainly makes me glad to know that folks like Robert Haley, who’s going into his sixth year as a crossing guard, and Sharon Johnson, who’s doing her third round this year, enjoy their jobs and take them seriously.
“I’m going to be doing this until I can’t do it anymore,” Haley told me. “It’s a great job, I love it.”

Laurie Lico Albanese is a walker, blogger, and writer. She began a year-long walking project October 1, 2009: to walk an hour every day for a year, to mark her 50th year. Read her blog here.

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