Baker: National Guard to assist with school transportation

Mariano says federal aid spending plan could come by Thanksgiving

GOV. CHARLIE BAKER called up the National Guard on Monday to help transport kids to school, amid a shortage of school bus drivers in the state.  

Baker said once it became clear that a number of communities were lacking drivers, he asked local leaders if they were interested in state help. “A bunch of communities said if you can figure out the legal issues, the paperwork, and all the rest, that would be great,” Baker said, speaking to reporters at the State House. Baker said his goal is to make sure kids can get to school, and he anticipates the cost will be reimbursed by the federal government.  

The governor issued an order that will make up to 250 members of the National Guard available to transport children to school in vans, if requested by local school officials. They will drive so-called 7D vehicles – vans of up to 10 students, which are often used to transport special needs students.  

Beginning with training on Tuesday, 90 Guard members will prepare for service in Chelsea, Lawrence, Lowell, and Lynn, the governor’s announcement said. The Guard members are in the process of being vetted.  

The announcement noticeably did not mention Boston, which has been struggling with a bus driver shortage. On the first day of school in Boston, just 57 percent of buses arrived on time, and 4 percent of buses arrived more than half an hour late. News reports documented stories of buses that simply never arrived to pick up students. The bus driver’s union in Boston has blamed bad routing in addition to an ongoing labor shortage. 

Baker said the state offered services to Boston. “Boston said that at this time they didn’t want it now, but they were going to think about it,” Baker said. The preliminary mayoral election, with Acting Mayor Kim Janey as one of the candidates, is beind held on Tuesday. 

The governor said state officials had been making efforts over the summer to get more bus drivers qualified – for example, speeding up the testing process to obtain a commercial driver’s license. But he said part of the problem is the “growing pains” of reopening all schools, after many schools spent a full year operating remotely. 

As he has in the past, Baker reiterated the importance of having all students return to school, citing the educational and emotional toll remote learning took last year. “If we learned anything from 2020, the biggest lesson we learned was that remote-only education for kids, for the most part, in the vast majority of circumstances and situations, especially for younger kids, didn’t work,” Baker said. 

The governor was asked why he has not imposed a COVID vaccine mandate on teachers, as he has for nursing home workers and executive branch employees. Baker responded that teachers are municipal employees, so the responsibility and accountability for them falls on municipal government. 

Baker spoke to reporters after he and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito met privately in his office with House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka. The governor and the legislative heads used to meet weekly in person, but those meetings were suspended during the pandemic. While one prior in-person meeting was held several weeks ago in the Senate offices, Baker said this was the first time the four top government officials had met in the governor’s office since March 2020.  

One of the biggest issues facing legislative leaders is how to spend billions of dollars of federal money provided by the American Rescue Plan Act. Baker has been pushing to spend the money quickly, while House and Senate leaders want to be more deliberative, and are in the process of holding public hearings. Mariano said Monday that having an agreement in place on how to spend some of the money by Thanksgiving is a “reasonable” timetable.  

Mariano said another priority of his for this session is health care, particularly helping financially struggling community hospitals. Spilka said she anticipates the Senate passing a mental health bill. She is also prioritizing election reforms and redistricting.  

The State House today remains closed to the public, even as other office buildings have been phasing in their reopenings for months. CommonWealth previously reported that both Mariano and Spilka have said they want to institute a vaccine mandate before ordering members and staff to return – but that raises questions about how exactly to implement a mandate, particularly among elected officials. A number of representatives and senators, mostly Republicans, oppose vaccine mandates, and signed onto a bill that would prohibit requiring vaccination as a condition of entry to public or private businesses.  

Mariano raised those issues when asked when the building might reopen to the public. He mentioned the Republican-sponsored bill and said he was uncomfortable asking members and staff to return when some people are unwilling to declare their vaccination status. 

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Shira Schoenberg

Reporter, CommonWealth

About Shira Schoenberg

Shira Schoenberg is a reporter at CommonWealth magazine. Shira previously worked for more than seven years at the Springfield Republican/MassLive.com where she covered state politics and elections, covering topics as diverse as the launch of the legal marijuana industry, problems with the state's foster care system and the elections of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Gov. Charlie Baker. Shira won the Massachusetts Bar Association's 2018 award for Excellence in Legal Journalism and has had several stories win awards from the New England Newspaper and Press Association. Shira covered the 2012 New Hampshire presidential primary for the Boston Globe. Before that, she worked for the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, where she wrote about state government, City Hall and Barack Obama's 2008 New Hampshire primary campaign. Shira holds a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

About Shira Schoenberg

Shira Schoenberg is a reporter at CommonWealth magazine. Shira previously worked for more than seven years at the Springfield Republican/MassLive.com where she covered state politics and elections, covering topics as diverse as the launch of the legal marijuana industry, problems with the state's foster care system and the elections of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Gov. Charlie Baker. Shira won the Massachusetts Bar Association's 2018 award for Excellence in Legal Journalism and has had several stories win awards from the New England Newspaper and Press Association. Shira covered the 2012 New Hampshire presidential primary for the Boston Globe. Before that, she worked for the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, where she wrote about state government, City Hall and Barack Obama's 2008 New Hampshire primary campaign. Shira holds a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

“I don’t want to have a two-tiered system where I’m asking folks to come in and work besides people who will not declare whether they’ve been vaccinated,” Mariano said. “We have people in the House who are being treated, are immunocompromised. I’m not going to ask those people to sit next to people who won’t declare…. We’re not going to ask our membership to put their health at risk.” 

Mariano acknowledged the legal issues involved with imposing a vaccine mandate on elected officials. “What do I do to a representative who wants to come in who won’t declare [their vaccination status]? Those are the names on the bill. Do I throw them out? Do I ask them to come in and sit next to a representative who is immunocompromised?”