Schools

New Signs, Earlier Crossing Guard at Lafayette

Jackie McCabe is helping students at Lafayette Avenue and Chatham High Schools get to and from school safely.

With traffic increasing at Chatham High and Lafayette Avenue School, crossing guards take on an increasingly important role. Few people realize this more than the members of the Safe Routes to School Committee (SRTS), who are working with the state Department of Transportation make the Chathams a safer place to pedestrians and cyclists.

SRTS Committee members spent time evaluating areas near schools with the most vehicular, foot and bicycle traffic, and working out plans to make those areas safer. One of the first spots to get on their radar was Lafayette Avenue between Fairview Avenue and Longwood Avenue, where the entrances to Chatham High School and Lafayette Avenue School (LAS) are both located. The area, according to Committee Member Sarah Fechtner, "has a very high volume of automobile traffic coinciding with students on foot."

To help make the area safer, Jackie McCabe, the crossing guard at LAS, has starte to arrive earlier at her post. She helps students at both LAS and Chatham High cross the street to get to school safely. McCabe's own five children all went through Chatham schools, and two of her seven grandchildren are at LAS and Chatham Middle School.

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"Students are appreciative of her presence to enable them to cross the street during the high volume of morning automobile traffic," Fetchner said.

There are also new traffic signs along Lafayette Avenue, one in each direction as you approach the schools, to remind drivers to beware of pedestrians.

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