West Cook News

Associate Superintendent of Education for Oak Park Elementary Schools Dr. Felicia Starks Turner speaks about their one-year contract with Andy Frain Services.

The Oak Parks elementary schools board debates various possibilities for crossing guards for the upcoming school year.

“This is a one year agreement with the possible extension for one additional year." Turner said. "This will provide us the opportunity to explore maybe other options and analyze and examine the current structure we have in place to see if we need to maybe go in a different direction or continue with these services."

There were no responses to any sort of advertising or requests of vendors made by the school district except for Andy Frain Services. The school previously had an agreement with the police department to provide crossing guard services, which the department supplied through a partnership with Andy Frain for many years.

The cost for the one-year contract with Andy Frain would be $335,000 which is almost double what it was seven years ago. The increase is due to a combination of rising market prices, hourly rates going from $14/hr to $17/hr and the district adding a few more intersections to the list requested under the contract. Hiring the crossing staff internally was considered but determined to be even more expensive than the contract with Andy Frain.

Andy Frain is a national organization that was founded in 1924 in an effort to crack down on gate crashing at the Chicago Stadium hockey games. Since then its offerings have expanded and the company offers specialized security officers at sporting events, arenas, and businesses as well as trained crossing guards.