‘You have to solve it’: Emails show school zone traffic safety worries community

Former Diskin Elementary School teacher Lenny Lither said he is frustrated with the Clark County School District’s response to traffic safety, especially after an 18-year-old northwest valley student was killed in a crosswalk near her school.

A father of two, Lither said he was disappointed with Superintendent Jhone Ebert’s advice for the community to leave early to ease traffic.

“If you see a problem, you have to solve it,” he said. “Asking the community to leave 10 minutes early is not it.”

Last year, one of his children attended Walter Johnson Junior High School. Each morning, he would drop off his child at the crosswalk on Alta Drive, but eventually it became too dangerous.

“The traffic was so bad that I ended up having to cross with him,” Lither said. “They just didn’t care about the students.”

Other parents, principals, teachers, administrators and city employees are worried about student safety in school zones, too.

During the 2024-2025 school year, over 100 messages were sent to a school district email designed to address traffic concerns.

The messages obtained by the Review-Journal show 120 complaints sent from August 1, 2024, to June 20, 2025, containing keywords “safety,” “crosswalk” and related concerns.

Some emails came from school administrators who wanted an increased police presence in the area. They pointed out common problems, such as speeding, illegal U-turns, double parking and drivers ignoring crosswalks.

Later this month, CCSD officials, including district leadership and the police department’s traffic unit, will meet with officials from police departments and municipalities across the valley to work on a coordinated approach to traffic safety in school zones, school district officials said in an email statement. The School Traffic Safety Working Group will strive to assess traffic risks and how to intervene.

“Parents deserve to feel confident that their kids are safe going to and from school. It will take the effort of our entire community to achieve that goal,” the statement read.

Arbor View High School

Public concerns about school zone safety were heightened in May after Arbor View High School student McKenzie Scott was struck and killed by a driver indicted on driving under the influence of alcohol and reckless driving. The senior, just 25 days from graduation, was using the Buffalo Drive crosswalk by the school entrance.

Before Scott’s death, an email in September to the district from Nick Nishihama, a senior engineering associate for the Las Vegas Department of Public Works, highlighted concerns the department had received.

“Could you please have your team follow up on complaints we’ve received about speeding in front of Arbor View?” the email read. “We are particularly concerned about the mid-block crosswalk on Buffalo, north of Whispering Sands Drive, directly in front of the school where there have been reports of near misses involving pedestrians.”

In late April, a parent emailed the CCSD traffic unit asking how they can petition for a crossing guard after their child was hit by a car in the Buffalo crosswalk.

Seven days after the email was sent, Scott died.

After she was killed, parents and concerned students emailed teachers and CCSD. One parent emailed Arbor View principal Duane Bickmore to propose a parent-run volunteer crossing guard group. Bickmore urged the parent to press the City Council for crossing guards.

“Unfortunately, all things with crosswalks, crossing guards, lights, speed limits, etc. are done through the city and not the school district,” Bickmore wrote. “I wouldn’t be allowed with liability issues to organize anything that has to do with traffic or crossing guards.”

In mid-June, the city announced that safety enhancements would be added to the Buffalo crosswalk. A traffic study found the safety devices all to be working. However, the city will be repainting the crosswalk and adding signs and overhead pedestrian-activated flashers to the area ahead of the this school year.

Other parents voice concerns

Rebecca Dirks Garcia has been a parent of Clark County students for 20 years. Throughout the years, she’s submitted complaints to the district and said at one point Metropolitan Police Department officers monitored traffic near one of her children’s schools.

Although she’s grateful for an increase of crossing guards outside schools, she’s not sold that will fix the traffic issues CCSD faces.

“I obviously think it’s a good idea to have more crossing guards,” she said. “But the longer I’ve seen this issue play out, we have to change how we look at building schools.”

According to CCSD’s student transportation guidelines, students who live within 2 miles of their school are designated as walkers, meaning they are not eligible for bus services.

But in the heat of a desert August, Dirks Garcia says parents with vehicles aren’t eager to letting their elementary-aged children walk.

“How many 6-year-olds are going to walk 1.9 miles each way back and forth to school in 105-degree weather?” she said.

Police presence

Parents aren’t the only ones worried about traffic.

Between August 2024 and February, Jodi Janiga, Twitchell Elementary School’s assistant principal, emailed the district four times, asking for police presence during morning drop-off. Rogers Elementary School’s principal, Jennifer Hamby, emailed three times between August 2024 and October 2024, with various traffic concerns and police requests. Neither official responded to multiple requests for comment, and it is unclear whether the district addressed their concerns.

During the first few weeks of school, which starts Aug. 11, school police and other valley police departments are expected to increase presence in school zones to monitor traffic, said Lt. Michael Campbell, with the school district traffic unit, which focuses on education and enforcement.

“We try to make as many contacts as we can with drivers that are doing those negative behaviors like speeding, U-turns, parking in the middle of the road, or anything that would either injure, or worse, any driver or child,” he said.

Crossing guards

Many of the complaints to the CCSD traffic email cited a lack of crossing guards and problems with some of those on school grounds.

Crossing guard placement is ultimately up to the discretion of municipalities and the Clark County Commission, which oversees unincorporated areas.

“While the jurisdiction maintains the right of way and control over the areas around the schools, we need that partnership with the school district to protect each of our students,” Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft said in a July 17 news event.

In February 2024, the commission supported an effort to increase the number of crossing guards at 23 middle schools.

During the 2024-2025 school year, schools in unincorporated Clark County saw decreases in student-involved crashes, Naft said.

Elementary and middle schools in the area saw the biggest changes with 64 percent and 69 percent decreases, respectively. High schools in the area had a 13 percent decrease in student-involved crashes.

Within Las Vegas city limits, all CCSD elementary schools have crossing guards. Middle and high schools in the city do not have crossing guards, public information officer Jace Radke said.

As part of a pilot program, the city placed crossing guards at Gibson Middle School and Cimarron High School from November 2024 to May 2025. The city found better traffic compliance when a crossing guard was present. But the city’s 2025-2026 budget only allocates funds for crossing guards at elementary schools.

“The city of Las Vegas will continue to consider the data from this pilot program in future annual budgeting processes,” Radke said.

Elementary and middle schools in North Las Vegas have crossing guards. The city does not place crossing guards at high schools, said Kathleen Richards, North Las Vegas public information officer.

In Henderson, all CCSD elementary and middle schools have crossing guards. Charter schools, private schools and high schools are welcome to create volunteer crossing guard programs, a Henderson public information officer said.

Contact Megan Howard at mhoward@reviewjournal.com. Follow @meganmhxward on X.