School crossing guard just shakes his head

In his five years as a crossing guard at Gehring Elementary School in south Las Vegas, Stuart Copans has seen it all – the double- and triple-parking, the abrupt U-turns, parents speeding out of the school zone once they’ve dropped off or picked up their child.

He slowly shakes his head in amazement.

"It gets a little touchy when some people don’t give a damn," says Copans, 78. "We’re not allowed to direct traffic. We can’t yell at drivers.

"We stop the things we can stop, and that’s kids doing things that kids do. They’re much easier to control than the adults."

As he speaks, just minutes before school lets out on a warm fall afternoon, a blue sedan racing along adjacent South Maryland Parkway brakes sharply before turning onto Richmar Avenue, where Gehring is located. It’s a mother rushing to get into the traffic queue to pick up her child.

Copans again shakes his head, this time without saying a word.

Pull up to almost any school in the valley – elementary, middle or high school – and you’ll see the same thing: a dangerous brew of unsafe driving and overwhelming traffic congestion. Mornings are bad; afternoons, we’re told, are worse.

Gehring, 1155 E. Richmar Ave., is one of the most troubled. So, too, is neighboring Cartwright Elementary School, 1050 E. Gary Ave., according to a short list provided by the Clark County School District Transportation Department. Both schools are at capacity with 700 students each.

Silvestri Middle School, just a couple of blocks away at 1055 Silverado Ranch Blvd., is also in the mix, according to the list, with 1,600 students.

Talk to any crossing guard and you’ll hear the same tales of near-misses, be they vehicle-child or vehicle-vehicle.

Factor in school bus drivers simply doing their jobs – as cautiously and carefully as their precious cargo mandates – and it’s shocking no one has been killed or seriously injured in the parking lots of valley schools or on the streets that abut them.

Even high schools such as Desert Oasis, in extreme southwest Las Vegas, have danger zones.

Parents waiting to pick up their teens in front of the school at 6600 W. Erie Ave. idle in a marked "No Parking Anytime" zone, or they line up in a dirt lot across the narrow two-lane street that leads some children to jaywalk to get to family vehicles.

Students in their own cars pour out of the parking lot, adding to the congestion.

A school district police officer sits in his cruiser and watches as school lets out. He doesn’t ticket those parents parked illegally, or those students who jaywalk – some of them with heads down, text-messaging as they cross. Speeders are cut no slack, however.

"We allow certain things," says the officer, who declines to give his name. "We have to. The parents have no other choice" about where to park.

He terms some schools, such as Desert Oasis with its 2,000 students, as "poorly designed" to accommodate traffic necessities. "Accidents waiting to happen?" he’s asked. He nods.

Meanwhile, Andrea L. Simms, transportation operations manager for the school district, holds his breath. He hears the horror stories, and the ones involving children trying to get on and off school buses particularly scare him.

He wishes drivers would use common sense, whether it be in school parking lots or at the curb while waiting to pick up a child, or especially along the bus route where parents also park to pick up youngsters. He wishes they would think safety first. He wishes they would show respect.

Kids will be kids, he acknowledges, but he says there’s no excuse for the impatient parent who "tries to creep past the stop-arms of a stopped school bus."

"They’re obviously not thinking," Simms says. "They’re trying to get somewhere, trying to get that student to practice or to the doctor or back home, and that’s how accidents happen."

Back at Gehring, Brenda Quibuyen stands outside her minivan parked on the opposite curb, waiting for the school bell to ring so she can walk over and pick up her grandchildren.

She has witnessed more than her fair share of close calls, she says, and frankly wonders what gets into people. As she speaks, a father in a bronze compact double-parks in front of the school and begins fiddling with his cellphone while two other parents try to squeeze their cars into an already packed school parking lot.

Quibuyen glances over at the madness.

"Sometimes, it seems we only think about ourselves," she says. "I’m careful to watch out for other kids. Other parents, as soon as they pick up their kids, they want to go."

Then in one simple sentence, she gets to the crux of the matter.

"I couldn’t live with myself if I ever hit a child," she says, like Copans, the crossing guard, slowly shaking her head as she speaks.

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