The City of Moncton was quick to rally the troops to act as school crossing guards after the firm it hired for the job suddenly pulled out.

The Anglophone East School District sent a message to parents Monday evening, saying there would be an "indefinite interruption" to crossing guard services in the city. 

The district warned of the need to take extra care in school zones and at crosswalks. 

The City of Moncton is in charge of providing crossing guard services, but cancelled the contract with Neptune Security Services Inc., the company it hired last year to deliver the service. Seventeen locations, serving the Anglophone East and Francophone South districts, require a total of 32 crossing guards.

The city said Neptune Security, an Ontario-based company, was not meeting standards so was given the required 30-day notice that its contract was being cancelled. The city assumed the company would continue providing the service for those 30 days, or until Jan. 4. 

"Unfortunately, the current company decided not to exercise their functions until the end of the 30-day notice and pulled their crossing guards yesterday suddenly," said Isabelle LeBlanc, director of corporate communications for the city, told Information Morning Moncton on Tuesday.

But within 45 minutes, the city rallied enough people, including bylaw officers and commissionaires, to continue staffing the crossings, LeBlanc said.

LeBlanc said these temporary crossing guards all have some experience in security. They gathered at City Hall on Tuesday morning to get instructions on what to do. 

LeBlanc would not elaborate on why the city ended the contract with the crossing guard company or indicate whether schoolchildren were at risk because of the company's work.

"Despite our repeated attempts to rectify the situation, there seemed to be no solution," she said.

Another firm has been hired to provide crossing guards starting Jan. 4.