Bus Driver Shortages Hit Mount Desert, Reflecting Statewide Struggles, Plus, Cadillac Mountain Road Will Be Open Again and Taking Reservations, October 3.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Swan Agency Real Estate.
MOUNT DESERT—School bus driver shortages are impacting schools around the state and country and Mount Desert Island Elementary School is feeling the pressure.
It’s not because the school can’t pay anyone to bring their students to school. It’s because the school can’t find anyone.
According to a recent article by Maine Public’s Madi Smith, there are approximately 80 unfilled school bus driver positions in Maine.
This matters because it can create higher overtime costs for schools and taxpayers, decrease student attendance, decrease instructional time, and cause extracurricular activities to be cancelled.
Currently, the students who take a bus to the Mount Desert school can still get there on the bus. There are three routes and three drivers. That’s only because Russ Gray agreed to return to drive through the end of October.
After Mr. Gray leaves to spend his winter months with his wife out of state, the school will have two drivers for three routes with a need to transport 56 kids.
“We are able to combine two bus routes, except for 18 students. We are still working on a plan to get those 18 students to and from school,” Principal Heather Dorr told her school board Wednesday.
“We have convinced Russ Gray to come back and drive to fill a bus driver vacancy,” she explained. “Leon Sargeant, our maintenance director, is filling the other vacancy.”
The position is posted.
“We found a special ed teacher at the 11th hour, maybe we’ll find a bus driver at the 11th hour,” Dorr said.
The town of Mount Desert is a bit spread out on the island. One bus goes out to Otter Creek and Seal Harbor. The other buses go to Somesville, Hall Quarry, Indian Point, and Beech Hill.
Superintendent Mike Zboray spoke to the limitation options.
“Schools can purchase 10-passenger vans,” he said. Those don’t require a special commercial driver’s license. They can be purchased new or used.
Schools can only buy 15-passenger vans that are used due to laws, which has been done at MDI High School, he said. They don’t have all the safety requirements for picking up students along the roadways.
A potential option is that students could be delivered to a central location by personal vehicles or walking and the 15-person van could bring them to school. Another option would be having a bus driver do a double route in the morning and afternoon which would require either new staff or overtime pay to watch the students who have to stay late or arrive early for that double route to happen.
According to Zboray, Mount Desert is not the only school that will likely face this problem on Mount Desert Island. Tremont is going to have trouble because they are going to lose a bus driver due to retirement, he said.
“Southwest Harbor is struggling. They have a bus driver out for medical reasons. They are utilizing teachers,” he said.
Bar Harbor and the Mount Desert Island High School contract with Cyr.
Dorr said she’s waiting for a class to get her own class B commercial driver’s license (CDL) with a school bus driver endorsement. Tony Maker, principal of Elm Street School in East Machias, did this back in 2023. Washington County and much of Maine has dealt (or is dealing) with shortages for a while now. In 2021, Massachusetts called on National Guard members to get students to school because of a shortage of bus drivers.
“We have a month to figure it out,” Dorr said.
Cheryl Brackett, transportation coordinator at the Maine Department of Education told Maine Public, “If a school bus route is canceled, [a] parent may not have any transportation to get their child to school, or for school buses running late because they have to add some roads onto their own route because the driver’s missing, it’s going to make those children late to school sometimes.”
In 2020 the U.S. Department of Education made it a bit more difficult for school bus driver certification. The department increased testing requirements and added more training for a school bus driver endorsement, a new requirement when previously a Class B sufficed. The aim was to make safer, better drivers for a large and long vehicle that carries children.
Dorr said there is a lot of irony in the situation at her school where they’ve been steadfastly working on decreasing the chronic absence rate, which is currently 9 percent.
“Students who are chronically absent have been absent at least three days so far this school year,” Dorr said. “On September 30, 2024, the chronic absence rate was 12 percent.”
So, they are trending better so far this year.
“The average daily attendance rate for September is 95.3%. The average daily attendance for the school year, so far, is 95.5% (Up from 94.9% September 20, 2024),” Dorr wrote in her principal’s report.
She told her board as well as new Mount Desert Town Manager Alex Kimball, who was attending the meeting to introduce himself to the board members, “We’re really trying hard to promote positive school attendance.”
The irony is that they are doing this and then they are potentially going to have difficulties getting kids transported to school due to that lack of drivers.
“This is a challenge. It is a conversation that returns again and again,” board member Katherine Emery said.
The school is offering a position of 30 hours of bus driving and two hours a day of custodial work and being eligible for benefits to help combat the stigma for some of having a split shift that occurs from driving in the morning and then at night.
“We have the funds to do whatever we need to do. We’re just limited as to what we can do,” Dorr said.
UPDATE ABOUT ACADIA NATIONAL PARK
We’ve updated our story from earlier today about Acadia National Park. You can see the full update there (at the bottom of the story).
- Cadillac Mountain Reservations
- Cadillac Mountain will be resuming its normal operations tomorrow (Friday, October 3) and will reopen to vehicle reservations.
- All existing reservations will be honored.
- Vehicle reservations can be made at recreation.gov.
UPDATED: Shutdown Leaves Acadia Open to Visitors but Without Many Staff and Visitor Programs
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
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