The Maine School Administrative District 72, in Fryeburg, Maine, is in hot water after a special needs elementary student went “missing” for several hours last week while being transported by a substitute driver who could not speak English, and whose address on his driver’s license was a refugee services organization in a neighboring town.
From The Maine Wire: An MSAD 72 elementary school student being transported to an out-of-district placement by a substitute van driver went missing for several hours Wednesday, prompting a police search before she was ultimately located safe.
District officials called the incident “deeply concerning” and said the transportation company involved will no longer be used.
MSAD 72 serves Fryeburg, Denmark, Sweden, Lovell, Stoneham and Stow, as well as Chatham, New Hampshire.
According to a post the girl’s mother made on a private Facebook page, her special-needs child disappeared for roughly six hours while en route to her placement school in the Augusta area. She wrote that she learned of the problem when the receiving school notified her that her daughter had not arrived.
According to the report, the foster mother, Katie Joy, and the school district each filed police reports, and the sheriff’s office opened a missing child investigation.
Joy explained that the regular driver had cancelled out that morning, due to the weather, and the substitute driver arrived over an hour late. The 7-year-old child was supposed to be taken to Monmouth by 9:10 a.m., but the van, driver and child were finally located hours later in Lewiston. The child finally arrived at the correct school around 12:40 p.m.
The substitute driver had a Maine driver’s license, with an address of 256 Bartlett Street in Lewiston… which is the address of Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services (MEIRS). He had reportedly been contracted through First Student Bus Co. The school district now says they will no longer use that transportation company.
Parents in the community are furious, and an emergency school board meeting was held Monday night, Dec. 8, although the board only allowed 15 minutes of public comment.
Steve Robinson, editor at The Maine Wire, is blasting Maine’s Secretary of State Shenna Bellows for giving a driver’s license to an “asylum seeker.”
Robinson shared a video of remarks made by Katie Joy, the foster mother of the child.
Fake asylum seeker given license by @ShennaBellows effectively kidnapped this woman’s child for six hours.
Maine desperately needs federal intervention. https://t.co/9ua0i3Miz3
— Steve Robinson (@BigSteve207) December 9, 2025
The identity of the substitute driver has not yet been revealed.
An MSAD 72 elementary student vanished for six hours after being picked up by a non-English speaking substitute van driver, prompting a missing-child investigation.
The driver listed 256 Bartlett Street in Lewiston as his address on his license, which is the address of Maine… https://t.co/zAUoyB47gx pic.twitter.com/cq3nP5gjhl
— The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire) December 8, 2025
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