Pgh School Shake-up Hits this week -- starting with crossing guards again

Our schools are in trouble. And, again, we find that the powers that be are dinking over crossing guards. Frustration mounts.

Doug Shields on City Council got to serve as a crossing guard for an hour recently. He lived to talk about it today at the council meeting.

This was an issue last year and the year before. It is still a big issue in the budget for 2006. The oversight board wants to have a meeting with the city and schools to shift the cost of the crossing guards onto the backs of the school budget. And, city council members want to get the city, county and school leaders to meet to talk about the crossing guards too.

Wrong.

The city has had a duty to pay for crossing guards. Mayor Murphy messed up, as usual. Now, you got to go back and fix up his mess.

School crossing guards should be paid for by the city. Those who are in charge of doing the budget, city council, should fix the problem that lingers.

The crossing guards work the streets that go before city, charter, private and cathlolic schools. The streets are for drivers, walkers, bikers, bus riders and our kids. This is the realm of POLICE and public safety.

I want my school budget to pay for reading coaches, math teachers and algebra tutors. Our school system needs to teach kids -- not make sure that neighborhoods are safe. The city council and mayor need to make sure the neighborhoods are safe.

The oversight board wants to take money away from the schools to pay for crossing guards. Meanwhile, the school performance is so bad -- we run the risk of the entire school district being taken over by the state. There is a bad idea in the middle of becoming real. Rob the school district, over and over again, then take it over for failing to meet state standards. Pay more later when the state takes over all the schools of the district.

These guys are trying to kill the schools, and in turn the city. And, the city council members are letting this happen.