Bradley Abeyta had a successful career as a salesman. But a series of tragedies changed everything.
“I lost one of my grandmothers in a car crash. I lost two of my childhood friends in a car crash. I lost another close family friend in a car crash.”
He thought he’d go back to school to be a traffic engineer. The cost and time commitment made that impossible, but what about starting as a crossing guard as a way to get involved?
“I wanted to do something that felt more meaningful and felt like it was actually impacting my community,” he says.
So, every day, rain or shine, hours before his full-day shift as an aide for special education students, he dons his neon green vest and a large red stop sign and does his best to keep children safe as they cross busy streets to get to a central Denver school.
“It’s important that they are protected and safe,” he says. “Kids are typically not represented well politically, and so people aren't really concerned about their needs.”
But like other crossing guards, Abeyta quickly learned the job of keeping children out of harm’s way — even just an hour or two a day — is difficult, intense and stressful. It’s as much about directing traffic as managing human behavior. From defiance to outright road rage, crossing guards face it all.
About 50 of Denver Public Schools' cross guards gathered on a recent weekday to learn de-escalation skills and to practice those skills in live role-plays with actors.
Pitfalls of pickup and dropoff
A national survey of public-school leaders last year shows nearly 40 percent said traffic patterns around the school pose a threat to students’ physical safety. The number of parents driving their children to school has flipped since the 1970s, when most children walked or biked to school. Now, just about 10 percent to 12 percent do. That’s led to tense and stressful situations around pickup and drop off time, with crossing guards paid about $20 an hour to manage the scene.
In a parking lot at Bruce Randolph High School, Abeyta blows his whistle as he approaches a woman in an SUV. She says she’s allowed to park there.
“No, you’re not actually … so this sign right here says ‘no parking,’ it’s a school zone. You’re actually endangering kids’ lives right now,” Abeyta says firmly.
The lady’s not buying it. “Too bad, this is where I’m parked,” she says. “I’m not going to hit one of the kids!”
They go back and forth and finally, flustered, Abeyta says, “Then I guess I’m going to have to call the cops!”
“And … SCENE!” calls out a trainer.
The woman in the car is an actor, and Abeyta just tested out his de-escalation technique by role-playing.
The crossing guards have already spent a couple of hours talking about active listening skills, diffusing a situation and building empathy and connecting with the driver as a way to change behavior. Now they’re practicing scenarios with live actors. The scenarios these crossing guards face are all too common — defiant parents blocking lanes, drivers blowing through red lights, people texting or eating breakfast or putting on makeup while driving near school crosswalks.
An apparent change in drivers
Andrea Garcia manages DPS’s crossing guards. She’s noticed a big change in drivers since the pandemic.
“We have a culture that they’re angry, they’re always just worked up, they don’t want to listen, they don’t want to follow the rules.”
Crossing guards say the biggest misconception about the job is it’s easy — just stand there with a sign, right? But in busy neighborhoods, it’s anything but.
Tina Archuelta works the corner for busy Colfax Elementary. Each day, she’s trying to help hundreds of kids on four corners cross a busy intersection. She’s got her eyes on cars going in multiple directions, watching signals and watching kids. She’s been amazed at the number of cars who blow through red lights or just won’t stop.
“You’re standing in front of them as they’re turning and you have a bright vest and a sign, and they still keep coming at you.”
Garcia helped out at Colfax Elementary in the first few weeks of school. She described the cars going east on Colfax.
“They blow through that red light, and she’s (Archuleta) in the middle of the street, and she is blowing her whistle and telling them to stop. They are flipping her off. They are yelling at her. They are telling her to get out of the way! It is very scary.”
Once, a driver almost took out a parent in a wheelchair. A couple of drivers tried to attack Abeyta once. Garcia, at 5’2’’, 120 lbs., has had people try to fight her.
Crossing guards, who say they feel supported by the district, say they’d like more outside reinforcements. One said he’s spent hundreds of hours after work trying to communicate concerns to Denver police, city transportation and the mayor’s and council members' offices about speeding and defiant drivers.
“I’m alone on the corner,” he said.
Road rage, up close
At her Washington Park area school, Lenisha Ortega says parents usually follow the rules. It’s other drivers who can be a problem. She’s seen road rage up close.
“Somebody got out of that first vehicle, came around and had a brick, threw it at the vehicle behind and hit the windshield.”
She radioed for help, but, like in many cases, the cars were gone before help came. Denver Police Department traffic patrol officers are supposed to be swinging by to check on things at pickup and dropoff, but some crossing guards say it seems like there are fewer officers now. CPR was not immediately able to get a response from DPD on the number of officers on traffic patrol.
Take 2
Back at the role play, crossing guards are learning how to take care of themselves and their own emotions and how to adjust how they interact with drivers. The trainer breaks down Bradley Abeyta’s performance interacting with the woman in a no-parking zone who wouldn’t move her SUV.
“How did you start this conversation?” asks the trainer
“Move!” laughs Abeyta.
They discuss how his tone was a little aggressive, and the whistle-blowing put the driver on the defensive right away. To get the woman to move her car as quickly as possible, that logical, whistle-blowing approach where he sees the woman as a problem isn’t working. The group gives Abeyta suggestions: softening his tone, asking the driver how she is, introducing himself – that often changes how people react to you.
Abeyta tries it again, approaching the woman.
“Hi, my name’s Bradley, I’m the crossing guard here.” He’s polite, approachable. The woman still pushes back, but the encounter goes a little more smoothly.
Abeyta’s fellow crossing guards clap. The trainer is enthusiastic.
“You got this!” he tells Abeyta. “You were a totally different person!”
Heavy emotional toll
The crossing guards say the skills are good, but they are still frustrated.
Some of their shifts are so intense with several incidents each minute, they don’t have time to engage in empathy-building discussions with drivers who don’t have empathy for them or what they do.
The word “entitled” comes up again and again. Some parents think the world revolves around them, says one guard. Every day, many encounter drivers who are dismissive, who completely ignore them, double park or park in a bike lane and say they’ll just be a minute.
The crossing guards are frustrated that they lack the power to get adults to follow simple rules.
“You should just be following the rules, and that's really frustrating, especially in a school zone … it's really hard for me to coddle an adult who knows better,” says Joe McComb, to nods of approval.
“This is the challenge,” says the trainer. “How do we have empathy for people that don't have empathy for us?”
There is a family-like camaraderie between the guards. They give each other tips and advice. One saw within the first few days of the job, moving people out of crosswalks and away from fire hydrants while trying to guide children safely across streets, wasn’t sustainable. So she puts out 48 orange cones at the start of each shift.
“So now people cannot park in these places, so that makes my job a lot easier, but that's like, you know, that's really difficult to do. But now I hardly ever have those sorts of (negative) interactions.”
The crossing guards agree on one thing – they won’t waver when it comes to children’s safety. Blanca Villegas had finished her shift when a driver jumped the curb and hit a car as she dropped off her kids. The driver was drunk. Villegas went in and reported her.
“My job doesn’t stop at the crossing guard,” she says. “It was the safety of the kids.”
But they love the job!
Abeyta, who lost his grandmother in a car crash, says it’s rewarding to be part of a larger community.
“You're interacting with the same folks every single day, you build those connections. You get invited to different things. You become part of something larger.”
And most parents are really nice.
“They trust you to be part of their lives to help protect them, and it is really rewarding to have that level of trust and to build those relationships with people.”
Alison Torvik, wearing stylish traffic cone earrings, says she became a crossing guard after the pandemic. “I needed a reason to get up and put pants on,” Torvik says in a perfect deadpan.
She says she may start the day grumpy.
“And then I get there and this little kindergartener comes up and goes, ‘Alison!’ and gives me a hug and little kids high-five my stop sign,” she says. “I find it a really delightful job.”
She rides her bike to work and has noticed that may have encouraged other families to start riding as well.
The other crossing guards agree. They love the sense of community and say despite the negative interactions with drivers. Many parents appreciate what they do. Lenisha Ortega has been a crossing guard at Kepner Beacon Middle School for eight years. She recalls a parent who brought her lights to go around her stop sign.
“These parents, they care, and they’re on it ... They're amazing. I really like being at Kepner.”
Their advice to drivers? If you’re in a rush, take a different route that’s not by a school.
“Pay attention to what you do and keep the kids safe because if it was your kids, you would want people to slow down.”
