With under two weeks to go until the start of the school year, Palmerton Area School District still has the majority of its crossing guard openings available.

As of Tuesday night’s board meeting, the district only had one of its seven possible guard slots filled.

“We have advertised, but we haven’t had a whole lot of success,” Jamie Schuler, assistant to the superintendent, said. “We will have to triage that at the start of the year to get our most important intersections covered.”

The 2022-23 school year is the first time the district has been tasked with filling the slots after the borough announced it planned to get out of the crossing guard business due to an increased difficulty staffing shifts.

“We received three names from the borough of individuals who may want to stay on, but one said they definitely did not want to move forward, another we have not received their application back yet and the third we do officially have in place,” Schuler said.

Superintendent Dr. Jodi Frankelli said one option the district is looking at to help staff intersections is utilizing the safety patrol position that is included in the teachers’ contract.

“That obviously won’t get us to seven,” Frankelli said.

The district did contact two outside companies that handle crossing guard staffing. Both, Frankelli said last month, were based outside Pennsylvania, however.

“The one company we heard back from wanted over $70,000 for the year and that really priced us out because when the borough was handling things it was costing under $40,000,” Frankelli said.

The crossing guard shifts run from 7:55-8:25 a.m. each morning and 2:50-3:20 p.m. each afternoon. Guards would make $10 per shift.

Applicants must submit a support staff application, Act 34 Criminal, Act 151 Child Abuse and Act 114 FBI Fingerprinting clearances. Application materials can be found on the district website at www.palmerton.org under the human resources tab.

Applications can be mailed to Ms. Jamie Schuler, Assistant to the Superintendent, Palmerton Area School District, 680 Fourth St., Palmerton, PA 18071, or emailed to humanresources@palmerton.org.