PARIS — Despite hiring 10 new school bus and van drivers before the start of school (and two more recently), Transportation Department challenges remain in Oxford Hills, frustrating parents, their employers and district personnel focused on improving student absenteeism.

Some parents took to their community pages on Facebook to commiserate over the issues.

“Day 3 no bus for my kids … today it’s unforeseen medical issues … yet for 2 days we already had no bus,” wrote one parent. “And at the time messages [are] flooding in concerned about time missed at school by my kids.”

Another parent shared that the driver for their child’s route was showing up, but they were driving a different bus, indicating to the parents that the regular vehicle must be out of service.

And a single parent lamented that her choice seems to be only to miss work and receive reprimands or to keep her kids home so she can at least earn her paycheck instead of transporting them herself.

Chronic absenteeism, defined as a student missing 18 days or more of school per year (or at least one day a week), has been a critical problem for Maine School Administrative District 17 since the pandemic, according to a news release from the district. During the 2022-23 school year, 42% of students in the district were recorded as chronically absent.

Within a year of developing a strategy to improve attendance, SAD 17 was able to reduce that to 33%. It includes personalized family outreach, individualized student attendance plans and improving bus driver retention.

SAD 17 has raised wages for its transportation employees and already pays the cost for state-mandated training. Oxford Hills/Nezinscot Adult Ed provides bus driver training classes, but it takes 15 weeks to complete the course.

“We had a rough run last week with sick drivers, which has a significant impact on our student attendance,” SAD 17 Superintendent Heather Manchester told the Advertiser Democrat on Monday. “We’ve got a few more drivers in the hiring pipeline, which will help.”

By Tuesday Manchester confirmed the district had hired another van driver as well as a mechanic the previous day.

“And we have ordered two more vans to support our transportation,” she added. “These are being paid for with our remaining American Rescue Plan (federal COVID) funds, so there will be no impact on our budget.”