Crossing guard in her 14th year of road duty

Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat nor gloom of Montana’s dark winter mornings can keep Chrystal Shue from her post.

She is on the sidewalk outside Evergreen Junior High School by 7:15 a.m. Monday through Friday, August through June. Then she’s back again in the afternoons, making sure students at the school get safely across the street.

Shue is in her 14th year as a crossing guard in the Evergreen School District. Now 34, Shue says it’s a job she took when she didn’t know what she wanted to do.

As a 20-year-old who had recently earned an Associate of Arts degree at Flathead Valley Community College, Shue was looking for work. She wasn’t sure quite what she wanted but knew she wanted to work in a school.

When a crossing guard position opened up in Evergreen, Shue applied.

“It was a job, and I thought it could open a door,” she said. “I didn’t know if I wanted to be a teacher [or] an aide.”

Shortly after she started the job, Shue had an opportunity to try working as an aide. The special education department at East Evergreen Elementary needed help and Shue decided to give it a try.

But the student she was assigned to work with needed a paraprofessional who was trained to address his particular needs, Shue said. “I couldn’t give it to him, so that ended that.”

It wasn’t the end of Shue’s career in the classroom, however. Almost immediately she was asked to fill in for an absent aide. She has subbed consistently, usually for paraprofessionals, ever since.

The experience has been great for Shue. She is able to work as a crossing guard in the mornings, help out in classrooms all day and get back to her sidewalk post in the afternoon.

Not all school districts would be so flexible, she said.

“They work around [the crossing guard schedule] and give me extra time,” Shue said. “They’re really, really good about accommodating me.”

Shue sometimes thinks about going back to school to get her teaching license; she would like to one day teach junior high history. But for now, Shue enjoys her work.

She’s finished each day by 4 p.m. and gets summers off. She has enough substitute teaching jobs to keep her busy four or five days a week, and her crossing-guard duties ensure she gets outside each day.

Usually that’s a benefit, but Shue admitted there are times when she’d just as soon stay indoors. The coldest morning she has spent on the job was an icy 16 degrees below zero.

“Yeah, that was not fun. That was when I hated the job,” she said.

Despite the chill, Shue stuck it out.

She is “pretty consistent,” she said, and can only remembering missing work for two weeks in 14 years. That absence happened after she broke her foot in an icy fall outside of work.

“The subs weren’t too happy” about having to work outside in the winter, Shue said.

Her dependability over the years has made Shue a familiar figure to families in the area.

“She’s like a fixture,” said Kriss Bridenstine, who first encountered Shue when her oldest son, now 23, started attending the junior high.

“You see all the things in the neighborhood that have changed. There’s one thing that never changes: She’s on the corner keeping her kids safe,” Bridenstine said.

In all her years on the corner, Shue has never seen any vehicles collide with children, or even any close calls. But she’s on the alert every moment on the job, and some drivers’ habits worry her.

“Traffic doesn’t like us being there,” Shue said.

Some drivers on U.S. 2 apparently are unaware that the speed limit near the school drops from 45 mph to 35 mph when children are on their way to or home from school, Shue said. Impatient drivers are another problem.

Shue worries about drivers on West Evergreen who, when trying to turn right onto U.S. 2, squeeze in next to cars turning left or continuing straight ahead.

“Kids are standing right there, but they don’t care,” she said.

There are also many drivers who ignore red lights, she said. Crossing guards have to pay attention to vehicles disregarding the traffic signal before they can help kids venture into the street.

“When the light turns red, it’s red. We deal with it every single time it changes,” Shue said.

Shue worries about the children, but Bridenstine pointed out that students aren’t the only ones in danger if drivers choose to ignore the rules of the road.

“She puts her life at risk every day,” Bridenstine said of Shue.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.