Crossing guard services at 10 Fairfax County public high schools will be temporarily reinstated as the county supervisors assess solutions for pedestrian safety issues, the Fairfax County Police Department says.
“In the interim, Fairfax County Police officers and crossing guards will provide traffic and crossing support at 11 high school crossing locations previously staffed,” a spokesperson for the FCPD wrote to FFXnow this morning (Wednesday) in an email.
According to the FCPD, the newly covered locations include two crossings at South Lakes High School, along with one crossing each at Centreville, West Potomac, McLean, Edison, Annandale, South County, West Springfield, Chantilly and Oakton.
The decision to staff 10 schools appears to be a change from what the FCPD told members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and school board yesterday (Tuesday).
School board representatives Sandy Anderson (Springfield District) and Seema Dixit (Sully District) announced last night that crossing guard services would be restored at eight high schools: Edison, Chantilly, Oakton, McLean, West Potomac, Centreville, West Springfield, and South Lakes.
“Together, we have more work to do, and I will continue to look for every available option to ensure the safety of our kids with my colleagues and our partners on the Board of Supervisors,” Anderson wrote.
Dixit and Anderson both thanked community members “who spoke up and remained engaged as we work to protect safe routes for our students.”
The FCPD’s restoration of crossing guard services came a day after a 16-year-old student was hit by a car by South Lakes High School in Reston. While the student was not walking in a crosswalk or in an area that was previously staffed by a crossing guard, community members had raised concerns that a lack of crossing guards could exacerbate dangerous traffic conditions outside South Lakes and other schools.
Yesterday, several members of the Board of Supervisors — which approved a budget in May that eliminated funding for police crossing guards at high schools — voiced support for restoring crossing guard services where safety concerns warranted their return.
Deputy County Executive Tom Arnold told supervisors during a Budget Policy Committee meeting that an immediate return to staffing the crosswalks would entail help from uniformed police officers, possibly from specialty units to avoid drawing officers away from patrol duties, while the county tries to fill positions with contracted crossing guards.
According to Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay, the FCPD will continue covering the 10 high schools where crossing guards had previously been eliminated for this school year until it completes evaluations of the local traffic conditions.
Wishing the South Lakes student “a full and speedy recovery,” McKay said in a newsletter shared this afternoon that the crash underscored “the importance of continuing to evaluate conditions around our schools and identifying where additional safety measures may be needed.”
More from the newsletter:
I would like to thank our community, school advocates, my colleagues on the BOS, as well as School Board Members S. Anderson, [Kyle] McDaniel, and [Marcia] St. John-Cunning for their collaboration and input on this issue. I would also like to thank County staff, Chief Davis, and FCPD for their responsiveness to the concerns we have heard. This was a team effort, with multiple partners working together as we continue to transition to permanent solutions around our schools and countywide.
Pedestrian safety has long been a priority for Fairfax County, and we have continued to look for ways to make our roads safer. This is a community issue, and improving safety for our students, pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers requires a community-wide effort. Beyond the presence of uniformed crossing guards, permanent solutions include public infrastructure improvements that facilitate safe multimodal travel.
The FCPD is expected to deliver a final assessment and recommendations for future crossing guard coverage to the Board of Supervisors before it votes on a fiscal year 2026 budget carryover package on Sept. 15.
