Crossing guard at Im Birch — great job!

I want to put something positive on the record, because the person in question will certainly never do it herself. The crossing guard on Im Birch is at her post every school morning, in any weather, and she is extraordinarily good at the job.

What makes it work is not the paddle. It is that she watches the drivers rather than the children: she steps out early, makes eye contact, and only then waves the group across. In four months of walking past on my way to the station I have not once seen a car creep forward into the crossing while she was standing in it. Compare that with any unattended crossing two streets over.

I am writing this down because staffing decisions get made on budget lines, and a budget line does not record that the woman on Im Birch is the reason a hundred children arrive at school without an adult having to walk them there. So let this be the record instead. Whoever runs the patrol programme: keep this post, and pay it properly.