The City of Shreveport has a contract with the Caddo Parish School Board for the Shreveport Police Department to provide school crossing guards for 36 Caddo schools.

The contract is for the 2019-2019 school year. It expires May 17 of this year. The total number of guards to be posted is 74.

The school board pays Shreveport $11,960.

The city pays $260,800 of the total costs for the crossing guards.

But guess what?

SPD actually provides crossing guards to 42 schools.

That’s 6 more than the contract requires.

Schools that have SPD paid crossing guards that are not listed in the contract are:

Linwood Charter

Linear

Highland

St. Joseph

St. Johns

And 3 crossing guards are provided at Creswell Elementary when the contract only provides for 1 guard.

Questions that need to be answered include:

a. Why provide crossing guards at 2 private parochial schools?

b. Why provide extra guards at one school?

c. Why provide crossing guards at public schools not included in the contract

The Public Safety committee of the council is reviewing these issues.

Before a new contract for the 2019-2020 school year is executed, many issues should be resolved starting with the funding by the school board. And then guards should only be posted as per the terms of the contract.