Parent life / Three communities, 2019–2025
The crossing guard would like two tickets
Mr. Jeff’s sign had a new request. The school families took it seriously.
In October 2019 the Washington Nationals reached the World Series, and Jeff Covel, a crossing guard at Nottingham Elementary in Arlington, Virginia, held up a homemade sign. Children knew him as Mr. Jeff. It asked for one or two tickets, for one game only, with "Bucket List" in quotation marks.
It was a joke. About sixty families planned a surprise in a private Facebook group, and a group of kids and parents marched toward his crossing with two tickets. His wife, Covel said, was the only person he would ask to go along.
Most things handed to a crossing guard are small: a tissue, a lost glove, news about somebody's new shoes.
In May 2020, a Sugar Land, Texas, crossing guard named Karen Walker, known for her colorful hats, got a birthday parade. Ashlee Allen, whose two boys attend Campbell Elementary, organized it. She told KPRC that Walker remembered the students' birthdays and sang to them from her crosswalk every year. "Thirty cars have turned into over a 100 cars," Allen said.
Walker had no clue, KPRC reported, and she called out her thanks as car after car went by.
Plenty of parents need a phone reminder for the class party. By Allen's account, Walker simply remembered, and sang. So years of crosswalk verses came back to her as a street full of cars.
Not every crossing guard gets a parade, and the work goes on without one. In April 2025 two student reporters at Los Gatos High School profiled the crossing guards of their California town for the school paper, El Gato News.
Tony Holm, they wrote, hosted American Danish Radio and worked as a camera person for South Bay Championship Wrestling, besides his two daily shifts at the crossing. A vest tells you what someone is doing at drop-off. It is silent on the radio show.
Schools are full of adults we know through one narrow window: the guard, the dad of the child who has your child's water bottle.
Marie, another Los Gatos crossing guard, told the reporters how the window widens. She and the community members she saw each morning started out in September as strangers. As the weeks and months went by, everyone was saying good morning. "I look like I'm alone out here, but really, I'm not alone," she said.