Staff recommend keeping crossing guard contract for FY26; in-house options viewed as costlier or higher management burden

Portland Public Schools staff recommended the district continue its contracted crossing-guard arrangement for the 2025–26 school year, while documenting two in-house alternatives and their likely additional costs and management requirements.

Senior Executive Director of Strategy Sarah Warren presented three options: (1) have individual schools hire and manage crossing guards directly; (2) centralize management in a district office (for example, transportation); or (3) continue to contract with an outside vendor. "If we contracted it again with a crossing guard company, presumably, we could again negotiate the agreed upon rate," Warren said, noting the district negotiated a prior vendor proposal down to about $400,000 from an initial asking of roughly $589,000.

Nut graf: Staff judged the contracted model most practical for FY26 because it preserves vendor expertise, reduces immediate management burdens on principals and the transportation team, and avoids adding a mid-cycle management build-out while the district is implementing other operational improvements.

Warren provided budget estimates and tradeoffs: the district currently uses about 31 crossing guards; staffing the same complement in-house at an estimated $23 per hour for roughly three hours per day across a 180-day school year would produce a direct-payroll estimate near $385,000, with total in-house costs likely rising toward $400,000 once training, materials, potential benefits and increased liability are included. A district-centralized model would likely add roughly $80,000 for a manager (salary and benefits), increasing total costs beyond the current contracted rate. Warren said she had not yet solicited an insurance estimate for increased district liability.

Committee members raised operational concerns about adding guard management to school leaders’ workloads; Board Member Lena said she would be "hesitant to pass this on to the school leadership" because principals are already handling frequent daily substitute staffing. Board members also discussed whether future boundary changes or revised hazard-zone mapping could change crossing-guard needs; Warren said boundary or hazard-zone adjustments might raise or lower crossing-guard counts, and staff are continuing internal work to model those scenarios.

Ending: Staff will keep the contracted model under review and can return to the committee with further analysis if the board wishes to pursue an in-house or centralized model in subsequent years.