Lehighton Borough is about to become the second municipality to get out of the school crossing guard business, but Lehighton Area School District officials expressed disappointment last week with how the announcement was handled.

Earlier this month, Lehighton Police Chief Brian Biechy told council nobody is applying to be a crossing guard, making it difficult for the borough to staff the positions. Councilman Ryan Saunders said he feels the school district would have a much better pool of people to pull from.

Hiring school district employees, however, is no easy task either, LASD Business Administrator Ed Rarick said.

“We have an inability right now to fill our own positions, so I don’t see how it makes it any easier for us,” Rarick said at last Monday’s school board workshop. “It’s really just passing the burden because they don’t want to deal with it. We’re going to have the same issue.”

Currently in Lehighton, the borough hires the crossing guards and makes sure those spots are staffed each day, while it splits payment for the guards with the school district.

The borough said it would honor its agreement with the district through the end of the 2021-22 school year.

While Lehighton Borough Manager Nicole Beckett said a discussion with the school district should happen, LASD directors said the time for that should have been before the announcement was made at a public meeting.

“I don’t want to be negative, but we have all of our schools in the borough so we’re giving them all of our water, sewer and electric bills,” school board Director Walter Zlomsowitch said. “And now they turn around and say they don’t want to do this anymore without any conversation with the district. It’s disappointing.”

Palmerton Borough is also ending its crossing guard agreement with Palmerton Area School District following the 2021-22 school year. Councilman Kris Hoffner said the contract arrangement has been in place since 2009 for the borough to provide crossing guards at the two schools in the borough. The borough, however, staffed the crossing guard positions even before that contract was in place.