If your weekday mornings or afternoon commute takes you through the Central and North Avenue intersection, you’ve likely seen the animated crossing guard in the greenish-yellow jacket with a hand-held stop sign directing children and traffic.
“I’ve been at this intersection for about five years now,” said Sandra Warren as she kept a watchful eye on pedestrians at the busy location. “I cross Ella Flag Young and St. Angela students.”
It was the schedule flexibility that attracted her to working as a crossing guard 26 years ago, something that allowed her to leave her night shift job for a position with more flexibility as a mother with two school-aged children at that time.
Warren dresses in layers during the winter months, but it’s ice water that helps through the sweltering summers.
Motorists, more often than not, obey her commands, Warren said.
“The world got faster and faster and the drivers got faster and faster,” she said. “We’re trying to get body cameras to record the drivers that don’t obey the rules. We’re asking the Chicago Board of Education for cameras that we can put around our neck instead of us trying to write down [license] plates. Because if you’re trying to write down a plate, you can get hit.”
In May, Chicago Public Schools pushed out reminders that under Illinois law, drivers are supposed to stop for pedestrians at crosswalks, not just intersections with traffic lights or stop signs, and are supposed to beware of crossing guards and obey their directions.
Adrienne Chandler, the clerk and administrative assistant at Ella Flagg Young Elementary School in Austin, speaks highly of Warren.
“She’s high-spirited, energetic and nice and she will report the kids if they are not following directions,” Chandler said. “She’s a great crossing guard to have in the community for the children.”
Although Warren is dedicated to her job, she would like to take occasional time off but has not done so in the past four years.
“When I call to ask if anybody was going to be there if I take off, they would say, ‘we don’t have anybody to send,’” Warren said.
A lot of crossing guards quit during the pandemic, Warren said. In light of that, she said she takes every chance to encourage people to become a crossing guard, going as far as posting information about the job on social media.
With a starting pay at just $15.46 an hour with benefits, according to CPS, enticing someone to the role may be a hard sell.
Just as the number of crossing guards has dwindled, the number of children crossing at her intersection has also dwindled, Warren said, saying she used to have twice as many children crossing at that location.
She added that she believes parents enrolling their children into charter schools is a big reason for the decline.
“It’s like every couple of years, there’s a new one,” Warren said of the charter schools. “The reason I know is because whenever they open a new one, they send out fliers to the whole neighborhood and I get them.
As for the changes she’s seen over the years, Warren said she is now seeing more Hispanic children crossing at her intersection.
According to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s analysis of the U.S Census data, Austin’s Hispanic population more than doubled in 2020, while there was a decline in Black population.
As a longtime Austin resident who lives just three blocks from her crossing intersection, Warren has an up close and personal view of the changes to the area.
Sometimes, the children she’s helped cross the busy street in Austin, have come back and asked her if she remembers them.
“Next year will be 21 years that I’ve lived in my home, ” Warren said.
Born in 1954, she said it’s hard to not ponder retirement during the winter months, but she’s not ready to put down her stop sign just yet. She’s not sure what she’ll do with all the free time.
When she’s not working, Warren enjoys meeting up with friends for outings, reading love stories and listening to music.
