Queens parents struggle to get crossing guards after 2 students killed in traffic

There’s only one official crossing guard at P.S. 127, the Aerospace Science Magnet School in East Elmhurst, Queens. But every morning, Stephen Cameron, a 78-year-old grandfather of four kids at the school, dons an NYPD hat and neon yellow windbreaker with a police patch and voluntarily guides children through traffic.

“The most important thing is for them to cross here and get security for them,” said Cameron, who is retired from his job as a detective in Trinidad and Tobago. “All the buses come at the same time, everybody getting out at the same time … it makes it a little hectic.”

Not only hectic, but sometimes also tragic: Two students at the school have been killed in traffic in the last two years. They were each walking with a parent near school, navigating a neighborhood full of tricky triangle intersections where parents say it’s hard to figure out who has the right of way as drivers speed through. Just blocks away, kids navigate busy Astoria Boulevard, where they must often dart across multiple lanes of traffic to catch the bus.

For many months, parents have been trying to get more crossing guards at the school, which serves 1,000 students. But their requests have bounced between the NYPD, the education department, the transportation department and local officials without any action. A citywide shortage of crossing guards leaves little hope of additional support in the future.

“I don’t know how much red tape they have before they get something done,” said parent Marlene Rossi.

She became so fed up with city agencies’ stonewalling of her requests for another crossing guard that she applied – twice – to become one herself. She says she never heard back about her application.

Two students lost in two years

In March, Bayron Palomino Arroyo, 8, was in the crosswalk with his mother and brother at 100th Street and 31st Avenue — just five blocks from school — when a driver made a turn just as the light turned green and killed him. His 11-year-old brother Bradley, survived, but suffered wrist and head injuries. Tears streamed down their mother’s face as she described the son she lost that day.

“He was a very special child in every way,” his mother Guadalupe Arroyo, 37, said of Bayron in Spanish. “He was very affectionate.” He had a talent for picking out the best birthday gifts for relatives, she said, and wanted to be a firefighter.

In their basement apartment, his family – who immigrated from Veracruz, Mexico – have turned a corner bookshelf into a shrine overflowing with pictures of Bayron and his favorite things: stuffed animals, candy wrappers, and paper cutouts of soccer jerseys. He wanted a pink Lionel Messi jersey for his ninth birthday, which was just weeks away when he was killed. “He never got to turn 9,” she said.

“I had no idea there were pedestrians in the crosswalk. I felt a bump and heard screaming,” the driver, Jose Barcia, 52, told police, according to a criminal complaint. He’s pleaded not guilty to negligent homicide.

Arroyo wanted harsh punishment for Barcia – and other drivers who kill pedestrians.

“Don’t just give them one or two years, because that’s not going to bring my son back,” she said.

When Bayron died last spring, his school was still mourning another student killed in traffic.

Jonathan Martinez, 5, was struck by a car in a hit and run in September 2022 at the nearby intersection of McIntosh and 100th streets. Bystanders saw the car drag Martinez’s small body a few feet before his father could scoop him up.

The driver, Xavier Carchipulla, 40, is serving a maximum of six years in jail. He was driving with a suspended license.

“Both children were walking with their parents, both children were following the street signs and following what they needed to do, and an impatient driver just ran them over,” Rossi said.

According to the street safety group Transportation Alternatives, 116 children have been killed in traffic in New York City over the past decade. Of that number, 29 kids were on their way to or from school. The group says data shows a child is seriously injured near school every other day.

A dwindling force

According to the city’s Independent Budget Office, as of this summer, there were just 1,500 crossing guards working at city public schools. In 2019, there were more than 2,600.

Officials in Mayor Eric Adams’ administration said the current budget calls for more than 2,200 guards. A new class of 110 crossing guards is graduating from the NYPD this month.

But officials said attracting and retaining candidates is difficult.

“Traffic safety is public safety, and no family should have to suffer through the loss of a loved one due to traffic violence,” said City Hall spokesperson Amaris Cockfield. “We are constantly working to hire and retain more [crossing guards] to protect New York City’s children.”

Donald Nesbit, vice president of Local 372 of DC37, the union that represents crossing guards, said filling the ranks has always been hard. Employees must be willing to brave the elements for low-paid, part-time work – $18 an hour for 25 hours a week, often with a break in the summer.

“The rising cost of living in New York City is something where If I’m looking to support a family, I can’t do it right on that salary,” he said.

It’s also dangerous.  Just last year,  an on-duty crossing guard was killed by a dump truck driver in Queens.  “They put their life on the line,” Nesbit said.

Nesbit said that many guards retired after schools closed down during the pandemic, leaving behind vacancies. To save money, the city cut some of those vacant positions altogether.

“It’s a huge, tremendous gap” between the number of guards needed and those available, Nesbit said.

Parents get the run-around

But parents said the crossing guard shortage is only part of the problem, and that simply submitting a request for a guard at an intersection is difficult.

When Gothamist asked the NYPD – which employs crossing guards – how parents should make such a request, the police department said to contact the schools. The city’s education department told Gothamist to reach out to the NYPD. A City Hall spokesperson said those seeking additional crossing guards should make requests at the local police precinct or call 311.

“I cannot tell you how many PTAs, principals, parents, even children I’ve spoken to who would like a school crossing guard on every corner,” said state Sen. Jessica Ramos, a Queens Democrat. “You would think that this is one of the most basic ways to protect the safety of our children. And yet that seems like an insurmountable task.”

Ramos said her office has developed a protocol for how to respond when a child is killed by a driver, coordinating between the school and police, and finding social workers for the families. “It’s every parent’s worst nightmare,” she said.

She said the city should invest more in crossing guards. “Every mayor gets to make their priorities in the budget cycle and fully funding a school guard program is a choice,” said Ramos, who has launched a mayoral campaign.

She supports a bill that would require New York City to place a crossing guard at every school corner.

At the same time, she said there should also be other improvements, like pedestrian scrambles, where all cars have to stop and let people cross; daylighting, which increases visibility by removing parking spots near intersections; and broader policies aimed at decreasing congestion altogether.

Adams administration officials said they are working on these kinds of improvements, including limiting parking at more intersections, increasing speed camera enforcement and the creation of more than 70 “open streets” around schools that are closed to cars during the school day.

After Jonathan was killed at a triangle intersection two years ago, the city added more stop signs, bollards and cement blocks. “It took so long,” Rossi said. “This wasn’t here until after [the crash].”

“It’s not nearly enough …We need crossing guards to help these kids get through,” she said.

For families that have lost loved ones, back to school time brings renewed anguish. Guadalupe Arroyo has pass the spot where Bayron was killed every day as she drops off her surviving son and daughter at school.

“It’s really hard for me to keep walking,” she said. “I feel his absence so much.”

But she knows she must be vigilant and careful for her other kids. Just last week she was around Northern Boulevard, on the way to drop her daughter off at school when a driver made a turn on red, almost hitting them. If she hadn’t grabbed her daughter, she could have lost her, too.

Brittany Kriegstein contributed reporting.