Palmerton plans to end its crossing guard contract with Palmerton Area School District next school year.

Borough council on a 6-0 vote Thursday agreed to take the action, which will go into effect in the 2022-2023 school year.

Councilman Kris Hoffner said the contract arrangement has been in place between the borough and school district for many years.

Hoffner noted that in February, they had 24 call-offs of crossing guards, which resulted in the borough’s patrol officers having to fill in.

“That’s a real problem,” Hoffner said. “We feel it’s time to get out of the crossing guard business.”

As of the start of the 2022-2023 school year, the district will be in charge of providing its own crossing guards.

After the meeting, borough Manager Donna McGarry explained how the contract has worked.

“In years past, we had alternate crossing guards that would serve to fill shifts when a regular crossing guard wasn’t available,” McGarry said. “However, we have had challenges for quite some time maintaining an adequate supply of these, and when a crossing guard calls off their shift, we have tried to fill it with police officers.

“Unfortunately, this is becoming more challenging with the number of call-offs seeming to rise. Further, as you can imagine, the officers might not be available to fill a shift due to their other responsibilities.”

McGarry noted that the borough has had a formal agreement with the district since 2009 for the borough to provide crossing guards at the two schools in the borough, and added the borough provided crossing guards prior to that.