BAR HARBOR — A noticeable number of students in local schools are having classroom difficulties and behavioral problems that school officials attribute to the ongoing economic crisis.

“I think the number of families we have with one or both parents losing their jobs has had an incredible impact on the stress level they are under these days,” said Kelley Sanborn, director of special services for the Mount Desert Island Regional School System (MDI RSS). “That’s the tenor, the climate shift we’re seeing.

“If a kid’s mom is really worried and stressed out at home, then he is worried and stressed out when he gets to school, so he can’t concentrate on what he needs to be doing, so he isn’t learning as much and his teacher doesn’t know what to do with him,” she said.

Also, more parents seem unable to engage with the schools as much as they might have in the past, so small problems are more likely to become big ones, Ms. Sanborn said.

“We see a lot of parents who aren’t able to come and meet with us,” she said. “One parent a couple of weeks ago said she couldn’t come in because she had no gas in her car.”

Other parents are under so much stress that they are emotionally unable to maintain involvement with their child’s school, Ms. Sanborn said.

Ms. Sanborn said now is an ideal time for the school system to create an in-house clinical social worker position because federal stimulus funds are available to pay for the position this year and next.

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