👷‍♀️Crossing Guards Return for full School Year; Safer Roads Still Needed

We did it. We showed up and spoke up to protect our children, and on September 15, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors reversed course on its decision that cut high school crossing guards. For the rest of the school year, we will have crossing guards at the 11 crosswalks and 10 high schools that were served in previous years.

Since this school year began, you wrote to elected officials, alerted friends and neighbors, and posted content on social media. Your voices were heard, loud and clear. Thank you for taking action! 

I also must commend our students who were involved in myriad ways, culminating today by attending my rally and then the County’s meeting. Our students did us proud! Speakers were articulate and authentic in their remarks, and those not speaking were respectfully listening and supporting. They definitely got some civic engagement education today! Good news: more opportunities are coming to attend public meetings! Keep your eyes peeled for info. 

I’m committed to obtaining safer streets in Fairfax County, particularly around our schools, and I hope you’ll remain involved with me. Working together is the best way for me to do my job for you! I’ve learned over these weeks that the safest roadway systems include methods for education, enforcement, and engineering that when layered together decrease the likelihood of crashes. It’s an approach called “Vision Zero,” and it's aimed at a goal of zero pedestrian fatalities. 

Here are my remarks to the Board of Supervisors:

“Carryover money must fund high school crossing guards. Following are three reflections on how we got here.

First, the County Board is abdicating its responsibility for services that benefit and protect children.

Since at least 2024, the Board has sought to move County-provided services for children to FCPS to manage. This includes the Middle School Afterschool Program. Now it’s crossing guards from the Police Department, with the intention of training FCPS staff to do this job! NO. FCPS employees are not responsible for public road safety. And I hear that school nurses from the County Health Department are next. I am calling out here that while American public education fights historic pressures, Fairfax County government adds more work to FCPS employees. And, since 2020, the County Board has cut FCPS funding by $340 Million. That’s a fact. 

Second, residents want road improvements faster, before more people die. 

It took seven years to improve Vienna’s Beulah Road. Advocacy for Flint Hill and Vale Rd began in 2012, when a crossing guard was hit in a crosswalk, and residents are still waiting. Reston’s Sunrise Valley Road near Lawyers, and Centreville Road in Herndon at Floris Elementary School are waiting.

And we remember the 2022 Blake Lane tragedy, when a driver going eighty miles per hour in a thirty-five [mph road] killed two girls on the sidewalk and injured another. Those were Oakton High School students Ada, Gabriela and Leeyan. The dangers of Blake Lane were well documented prior. Of note, the County says that children are to blame for crashes - that kids aged 14 and up should have “adult-level pedestrian judgment.” That’s in this year’s budget question C-17. Despite the 2024 Blake Lane Road Safety Audit, the largest infrastructure projects remain. 

We need quick-build solutions while aligning engineering, funding, and coordination for lasting improvements. Also, Fairfax focuses on lagging data - that’s crashes. But we need leading data - near-misses. This County lost federal Safe Streets funding because it doesn’t collect data documenting the need for road improvements. Fairfax isn’t competing for money the state has to spend by law!

Finally, the Board of Supervisors has ostracized key partners. 

The claims that Fairfax County Public Schools have been unwilling to collaborate are false. Example: an April 2025 letter from the School Board asking to fund crossing guards and work together on annual budgeting. You sent no response. Also, FCPS was excluded this February at the Supervisors’ Safety & Security committee meeting, though an FCPS School Crossing update was on the agenda. Silence continued, except for in May when I was insulted by the Chair for my crossing guard advocacy. 

Basic solutions are not available because the Board of Supervisors defends the status quo, and the status quo endangers children. 

But I’m here to protect children, and I’m not going anywhere.” 

Best Regards,

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The views contained within this newsletter reflect the views of the individual school board member who is the publisher of this newsletter and may not reflect the views of the Fairfax County School Board.

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