Seocho-gu, 'Safe Route to School Assistants' at All Elementary Schools in the District

A Total of Over 200 Students in 23 Elementary Schools

Safety assistant activities on the way to school around elementary schools in Seocho-gu. (Photo by Seocho-gu Office)

Seoul Seocho-gu District Office (Mayor Jeon Seong-su) has stepped in to solve problems faced by parents who have difficulty participating in the Green Mothers' Association due to dual-income households and schools struggling to secure personnel for safe school route guidance.

On the 4th, Seocho-gu announced that it will assign 'School Route Safety Assistants' to all elementary schools to help ensure children's safe commute to school. This year, the district is providing a total of approximately 590 million KRW in educational expense subsidies to elementary schools in the area, allowing each school to employ up to 12 safety assistants. As a result, all 23 elementary schools in the district will employ a total of 200 School Route Safety Assistants to support children's safe commuting.

Until now, the Green Mothers' Association, which was responsible for guiding safety on school routes, operated through volunteer work by parents. However, with the increasing number of dual-income couples, many parents have been unable to participate in Green Mothers' activities, causing emotional distress for them and placing a heavy burden on schools due to the shortage of safety guidance personnel.

Since 2018, the district has supported educational expense subsidies to enable schools to directly hire School Route Safety Assistants.

At the start of the program, the district supported two safety assistants per school, but reflecting the opinions of parents and schools that a safer school route was necessary, the support was significantly increased to up to 12 assistants per school starting last year.

With the additional School Route Safety Assistants deployed, the scope of safety guidance has expanded from crosswalks near school gates to crosswalks with heavy vehicle traffic or where the distinction between pedestrian paths and roadways is unclear. In particular, safety assistants are also assigned to areas with heavy construction vehicle traffic, such as redevelopment and reconstruction zones.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.