Two additional elementary schools in Wauwatosa, Underwood and Washington, will be without on-site crossing guards during the 2026-27 school year under city officials’ updated list of locations where crossing guards will be assigned, prompting some parents to raise safety concerns as students prepare to return to classes next week.
The City of Wauwatosa pays a contractor to hire and deploy 23 crossing guards at specific intersections around the city during the school year to assist public and private school students mornings and afternoons. The city typically assigns those guards to intersections next to elementary schools and to other street crossings a block or more away along the most common routes to the schools.
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Under the new plan, Washington Elementary School will no longer have a crossing guard next to the school at 68th Street and Garfield Avenue. The two guards still assigned to the school’s east-side neighborhood will be stationed farther south on 68th Street at Lloyd Street and at Milwaukee Avenue.
And Underwood Elementary, on the city’s west side, will no longer have any crossing guards assigned to assist its students, either next to the school or at other intersections in the neighborhood. Underwood previously had one on-site guard assigned to 113th Street and Potter Road.
Three other elementary schools, Jefferson, Roosevelt and McKinley, also will not have crossing guards assigned directly on their properties this year, but that is no different from last year, when they each had at least one guard within a block or two from the schools. For McKinley students this year, the city plans to no longer staff the crossing of North Avenue at 88th Street but will maintain a guard at North Avenue and 90th Street.