Buffalo Grove residents starts petition to end Dist. 21 crossing guard dispute

Next week will be the last time this school year that students in the Buffalo Grove portions of Wheeling Township Elementary District 21 will have crossing guards to help them navigate busy intersections to and from classes.

Buffalo Grove resident April-Dawn Gladu is making last-ditch effort to change that.

Gladu has started an online petition at the website change.org urging her town's leaders to meet District 21 halfway on the costs of providing crossing guards.

"Please tell the Village of Buffalo Grove to put the safety of our children first and accept the District's agreement to pay half of all future services as they requested," states the petition, which has more than 100 signatures so far.

Gladu appeared before the Buffalo Grove village board this week asking trustees to "take the higher ground" in settling the dispute with District 21 that's eliminating crossing guards near Longfellow, Kilmer and Tarkington elementary schools and Cooper Middle School.

Because of a long-running disagreement between village and District 21 leaders, crossing guards will not longer be provided near the schools after winter break.

Neither Village President Beverly Sussman nor of village trustees responded to Gladu's request during the meeting, but Sussman later said she remains open to discussing the matter with school officials.

"If they want to bring it up and come and talk with us again, we're always ready to talk," she said.