FARMINGTON, N.M. — “Approximately 30 years ago, the City of Farmington took over the crossing guard program and administered it through the police department. As of this year, we’re gonna go ahead and take over the program and implement them as our employee’s here at the school district,” said Dale Body, a Farmington Municipal Schools safety and security supervisor. 

The new school year is right around the corner and before that first bell rings, Farmington Municipal Schools wants to make sure all students are safe, getting to and from school. 

“It’s always a challenge at the beginning of the school year to get people to understand that school is now starting. We’ve gone the whole summer with everybody running their regular speed limits throughout the area, and now all of a sudden we’re asking you to drop down to 15 mph when children are in their zones,” said Body. 

Although they can’t do it on their own, school leaders are reminding parents to be courteous of school buses, drive the speed limit, and stay off their phones in a school zone.

“We’ll have a fire department, and police personnel in almost all of our school zones to help remind people that those school zones are active for the first week of school,” said Body. 

The district is doing its part by making some changes. Starting next month, seven new crossing guards and updated school zone systems will soon be monitoring the streets for the upcoming school year. 

“While most of them have traffic lights, children need a little extra help crossing the street there and that’s where we’re going to be putting the crossing guards,” said Body. 

The updated automated school zone system is designed to improve traffic safety and reduce speeds up to 15 mph. 

“Those signals now throughout the whole city will be automated, they’ll turn on and off themselves without having to be manually operated, and that’ll include the signals where the crossing guards are at,” said Body. 

The new update cost the school district $74,000 and will be maintained by the city.