Fairfax County's school crossing guard program, which covers South Lakes High School and 94 other locations, turns 75 in October and is hiring.

The Fairfax County Police Department announced Sept. 30 that its School Crossing Guard Program has grown from 10 guards when it launched in October 1951 to a force covering 185 daily crossings at 95 locations across the county during the school year. The department said the expansion tracked the county's population growth and the rising number of schools.

The milestone arrives two weeks after the Board of Supervisors voted Sept. 15 to restore crossing guard coverage at South Lakes and nine other high schools. That vote approved $707,908 in funding and 11 full-time police positions to cover 11 crossings for the remainder of fiscal year 2027.

Filling those positions has been a challenge. At a Sept. 1 budget committee meeting, County Executive Bryan Hill told supervisors the county had received 235 crossing guard applications over two years and hired 10.

"We hire about 2% of the school crossing guards that apply," Hill said at the meeting, as reported by FFXnow. Positions start at over $36,000 a year and may not include benefits depending on hours worked, according to FFXnow's reporting.

Anne Rodriguez, a Fairfax County crossing guard for 22 years who worked the South Lakes post for at least three years before the high school program was cut, knows the risks firsthand. She told WTOP on Sept. 1, after she was instructed to return to the school, that she had feared an accident was inevitable without a guard there.

The FCPD said in its anniversary statement that the program's 75-year mission of pedestrian safety depends on the people who carry it out. The program is actively hiring.

Residents interested in applying can search for "school crossing guard" on the Fairfax County government jobs page at governmentjobs.com.