After two Maine children were hit and killed by school buses in the past month, three Midcoast lawmakers are working together on legislation that would require more buses to have and use crossing arms.

Last month, 12-year-old Brayden Callahan, a student in Regional School Unit 13, was killed after being hit by a school bus in Rockland during drop-off. Then on Tuesday, another student, 5-year-old Simon Gonzalez, was hit and killed by a bus in Standish.

Reps. Valli Geiger of Rockland and Ann Matlack of St. George, along with Sen. Pinny Beebe-Center of Knox are authoring a bill that would require every Maine school bus to be fitted with a crossing arm, and require drivers to always use them when dropping off children. The lawmakers, all Democrats, represent parts of RSU 13 in Knox County.

The devices, also known as control arms, are attached to the front right bumper of a school bus and extend out eight to 10 feet away from the bus during pickup and drop-off, requiring students to walk farther away from the vehicle where drivers can better see them.

A state law passed in 2019 requires all school buses bought in 2021 or later to be equipped with a control arm. But many older buses don’t have one, and the law also doesn’t require drivers to use the arm at every stop.

Geiger said that according to the traffic report on the Rockland crash, the arm was not in use. She said the idea to introduce a bill came from RSU 13 administrators.

“They had done a lot of work trying to figure out how this happened, why it happened, what the current law is,” she said Friday. “And so they met with us and said, ‘Would you be willing to sponsor this legislation to close some of these loopholes?’ And we’re like, of course, absolutely.”

Geiger said because the Standish crash is still under investigation, the proposed legislation does not address that incident. But, she said, if the bill goes forward and more information comes out about the nature of the Standish accident, it could be amended.

She said the control arms cost about $400, plus the cost of installation. She knows budgets are tight, and the state has to be prudent about what it mandates. But after these past few weeks, she said, it feels necessary.

“I think two deaths in a month certainly suggests that we need to be looking at bus safety in a more targeted way than we have in the past,” she said. “Because this just can’t happen. You can’t have children dying because they’re trying to get on or off a school bus.”

Because the deadline to submit bills for the session has passed, Geiger said, the Rockland-area lawmakers had to submit a request to the legislative council through the revisor’s office. If the emergency bill is approved by the council, they’ll draft it.

Other school districts in Maine have been reviewing their safety practices in light of the two deaths.

Portland Public Schools said in a statement that it had “reviewed our safety procedures with our drivers in light of these recent tragic incidents and continue to do so as part of our process of regular review and reinforcement” and was also reminding families and students of safe behavior around buses.