School Leaders Hope Safety Planning Conversations Continue to Move Forward.
May 07, 2026
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Thrive Juice Bar & Kitchen.
BAR HARBOR—As the Conners Emerson School prepares for a brand-new school building next year, Principal Dr. Heather Weir Webster thinks it’s a perfect time to think and plan about school safety.
That thought, she told School Board members, Monday, May 4, was only solidified more after she attended the National School and Student Safety Conference the week before.
“I have so many ideas, thoughts, worries, exciting ideas. It was such a thought provoking week,” said Dr. Webster.
Hearing the stories from other schools throughout the country brought a wide range of emotions, she said.
Working with other staff members who attended safety conferences, Dr. Webster plans to meet with the MDI YMCA soon as well to help work on safety ideas and plans. They’ve also been in touch with a school safety program, I Love You Guys.
According to its website, “The ‘I Love U Guys‘ Foundation’s programs for crisis response and post-crisis reunification are used in more than 78,000 schools, districts, departments, agencies, organizations, and communities around the world.”
They’ll have the summer, Dr. Webster said, to determine that security plan for the new school and figure out what it’s really “going to look like,” she explained.
“It’s the perfect time to help our staff with new procedures and protocols,” Dr. Webster said.
SAFETY GETTING TO SCHOOL AND HOME
Safety isn’t just about being prepared in a potential crisis. It’s also about how students get to school and how they leave it. It’s a topic the school committee has been working on for months.
School Board Chair Marie Yarborough said that she will likely be meeting with Town Manager James Smith Thursday, May 7, to discuss safety topics and questions that have come up before the committee since August 2025.
The topics are questions that the committee has generated but can’t move forward and what the protocol is to move forward and discuss.
“It’s a little bit of a challenge to get the conversation going, I think,” Yarborough said, “but it is going and it’s happening on Thursday.”
She asked that if any board members or staff had a comment on safety issues to let her know.
“We’re all here for the same thing. School board, administration, town: we all want to do the same thing,” Yarborough said. “We all want to get kids safely here and there.”
YMCA MOU UPDATE
A piece of how students get to locations after school safely has historically been part of the agreement between the town and the MDI YMCA, which hosts a lot of afterschool activities.
However, that bus has not been used to transport students for years.
The YMCA sits on town-owned land on Park Street and has had a memorandum of understanding or contract with the town for many years. The town also supports the YMCA financially each year.
Negotiations are still in process for the memorandum of understanding between the town and the YMCA, which receives funding from the town, so they are not yet public knowledge, Yarborough said.
The MOU will be presented directly to the Town Council and not go to the School Board for input first.
“Some time ago, our community Y had a school bus and we managed to have non-CDL staff drive the bus to and from Conners-Emerson for pickup,” YMCA CEO Anne Tikkanen said in April 2025. “Today, we have a decommissioned small school bus in need of repair, and are about to rent a van just for the Y’s summer day camp program (which can safely be driven by summer camp counselors). The needs of the community and services the Y can provide continue to evolve. We have a good working relationship with all of the schools on MDI.”
Historically, the Y provided a big bus and then two runs on the smaller bus.
“That’s how it was done for a really, really long time,” Yarborough said in 2025.
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