Due to budget cuts and police staffing shortages, Fairfax county has moved to replace police officers that directed traffic at certain school crossings with trained civilian crossing guards. McLean’s Westmoreland entrance has recently experienced this change, and it has dramatically limited the flow of traffic in and out of the school before and after school hours.

“The crossing guard instead of the police officer has really taken a toll on the school traffic before and after school,” senior Addison Ward said. “I have had to leave class early just to sit in traffic for 20 minutes in the ‘J-Lot’. I know many students that need to be at practice or tutoring after school and they have started to complain about how they are late to their activities due to the excess traffic.”

The Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD) has the Board of Supervisors have been proposing options for the school crossing guard program since mid-2024 to address a lack of police officers and FCPD resources. The FCPD was struggling to meet school crossing demands, and patrol officers were being pulled from necessary duties to cover these intersections.

Earlier this year, a county budget cut led to proposals that cut roughly 16 high school crossing guard positions. The FCPD hopes this will allow officers to respond to emergencies and other patrol responsibilities, but students feel something should be done about it.

“I currently waste 30 minutes of my day waiting in traffic to get in and out of the school which is absolutely ridiculous considering the fact that I live just down the road,” senior Nader El-Farhan said. “If the police department is unable to provide officers for our school, the school should train our administration to provide those services.”

Students have also found it detrimental to their ability to get to school on time. Students have noticed that the crossing guard often stops to let just one pedestrian through, rather than waiting until there is a group of people waiting to walk. This makes it so that cars cannot move in any direction, and lines build up from all sides of the Westmoreland entrance.

“The decision to remove the police officer who directs traffic at the start and end of the school day has dramatically increased the time it takes to get to and from the school,” El-Farhan said. “What is usually a four to five minute commute from my house in the morning has now turned into a 15 to 20 minute ordeal. Cars also have to wait to leave the school one by one through heavy Westmoreland traffic at the end of the day which clogs up the parking lot.”

With the crossing guard, students and parents waiting to turn left into the school have to wait until there are no cars coming from the opposite direction. This also happens with students trying to turn right onto Westmoreland at the end of the day. When there was an official police officer, they were able to direct cars to stop, allowing people to turn. The crossing guard does not have this authority.

“Now that they have crossing guards there, they don’t stop the traffic in a way that’s conducive for our kids to get out in an expedient and efficient way,” Safety and Security Specialist Bart Bailey said. “Whereas when the police officer was on Westmoreland, he would hold up traffic and allow a good flow of students to come out, maybe 25 to 30 cars at a time. Now with the crossing guard, you get five or six cars out and it’s just a nightmare trying to get drivers out of the campus after school.”

This has also become detrimental to administrators, who are finding that they have to stay later at the end of the day to direct traffic on campus because students are unable to exit out into the road in a timely manner.

“I get it that there’s a fiscal responsibility for the county. They wanted to save some money, so they pulled the police officers and hired an independent contractor to [be a] crossing guard,” Bailey said. “I see parents complaining in the kiss and ride, I know the students are really upset about it and for me, it’s a nightmare trying to do traffic control. As a school employee who is in security and helps the students trying to get out onto the road, not having a police officer there it’s just cumbersome.”

While a necessary change for the FCPD, this has created limitations that have completely changed the way entering and exiting the school at bell times functions.

“I think that we need to bring back the officer even if that means cutting down on spending money on other things for our school,” Ward said. “All of the students would be very happy if we brought this back and I think it would help with keeping kids in class for longer instead of rushing to get to their car. Mclean is going downhill, and we should at least keep the traffic officer.”