School Regionalization Study Proceeding With Mount Greylock

By Andy McKeeveriBerkshires Staff
Print Story | Email Story

Carrie Greene, who chairs the committee researching regionalization, told Lanesborough Selectmen there is no intent to close an elementary school.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The school regionalization committee says it has no intention of closing an elementary school despite circulating rumors.

Consultant Stephen Hemman, of the Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools, says a regional district will include a strict process that would need to be followed in order to close a school.

Hemman, speaking to the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Tuesday, said the issue has been raised in multiple meetings the group has been holding with teachers, parent-teacher groups, selectmen, finance committees, seniors and community members.

"We're hearing some things that surprise us," Committee Chairwoman Carrie Greene said when Hemman briefed the committee on the progress.

On Monday, selectmen in Lanesborough voiced the same concerns their Elementary School would be on the chopping block, and that was the intent of regionalization.

But closing a school was never the intent, said Greene, who also chairs the panel studying possible regionalization, but rather to see what benefits the district could reap by including both two elementary schools.

"It never occurred to us on the committee that we'd close a school," she told the Selectmen on Monday. "There is no intention to shut down a school."

School Committee member David Langston said that the state would need to approve the closure of any school anyway, so district couldn't do that on their own anyway.

"I am shocked that anyone would even think that is a possibility. That is completely off the table," Langston said.

The regionalization committee is looking at a plan to consolidate the Williamstown and Lanesborough schools into one district. Mount Greylock Regional School District and the elementary schools, which joined as a separate school union in 2008, already share a superintendent in Rose Ellis and other central office functions. Both elementary schools send students to the high and middle school district comprised of Lanesborough and Williamstown.

Greene, in each of the regionalization committee meetings, has been handing out a list of possible benefits the district could see with a larger region. Those include such items as a single school committee, ability to collectively bargain as one entity, decreased number of state required reports, centralized purchasing and additional reimbursement points if the high school is accepted into the state program to build a new school.

But the committee says there are also challenges such as the difference in educational support between the towns, potential costs and state funds.

"If it is not going to work, we're going to tell you it's not going to work," Hemman said, adding that a full report including prospective financial reports will be available in June when the committee returns to all of the groups it talked to.


The largest concern for Lanesborough is control over the school budget. Three times in recent years, Lanesborough has been forced to pay more for the Mount Greylock Regional High School budget because of the threat of a district vote — in which the smaller Lanesborough would be outnumbered.

"Being the junior partner in a two-town district, you'd be losing when it is crunch time," Selectman Robert Barton said at Monday's meeting. "In the end, our budget for the elementary school would be controlled by Williamstown."

Barton said the town does not have a problem with bigger districts but two towns are too few. He said to really make an impact, the district should investigate growing beyond the two communities.

Greene told the Selectmen that the committee is looking to include ways to "empower" the school councils to have a larger say in items affecting the individual elementary schools, including the budget.

"We could empower the school councils with more authority on how the budgets would be set for the elementary school," she said.

However, on the larger committee, she does not expect Lanesborough to have an equal number of representatives because of its size.

The Selectmen also questioned control over buildings. Greene said the agreement would likely mean the larger committee and budget would handle regular maintenance while the towns would be responsible for capital projects. The district would lease the schools from the towns.

"If you break a window, the district would pay for it. If you replaced all of the windows then the towns pay for it because it would be a capital project," Hemman used as an example.

With the introduction meetings completed, the regionalization committee's four subcommittees will tackle a report on the pros and cons. The four panels are looking at the current regional agreement and collective bargaining contracts, finance, education and community outreach.

The report much be submitted to the state in July, so in June the School Committee will likely vote whether to regionalize. A positive vote there would go to town meetings. A grant to implement an agreement would be sought to alleviate any costs associated with that, Greene said.


Tags: elementary schools,   MGRHS,   regionalization,   

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Berkshire Wind Power Cooperative Corporation Scholarships

LUDLOW, Mass. — For the third year, Berkshire Wind Power Cooperative Corporation (BWPCC) will award scholarships to students from Lanesborough and Hancock. 
 
The scholarship is open to seniors at Mount Greylock Regional High School and Charles H. McCann Technical School. BWPCC will select two students from the class of 2024 to receive $1,000 scholarships.
 
The scholarships will be awarded to qualifying seniors who are planning to attend either a two- or four-year college or trade school program. Seniors must be from either Hancock or Lanesborough to be considered for the scholarship. Special consideration will be given to students with financial need, but all students are encouraged to apply.
 
The BWPCC owns and operates the Berkshire Wind Power Project, a 12 turbine, 19.6-megawatt wind farm located on Brodie Mountain in Hancock and Lanesborough. The non-profit BWPCC consists of 16 municipal utilities located in Ashburnham, Boylston, Chicopee, Groton, Holden, Hull, Ipswich, Marblehead, Paxton, Peabody, Russell, Shrewsbury, Sterling, Templeton, Wakefield, and West Boylston, and their joint action agency, the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC). 
 
To be considered, students must submit all required documents including a letter of recommendation from their school counselor and a letter detailing their educational and professional goals. Application and submission details will be shared with students via their school counselors. The deadline to apply is Friday, April 19.
 
 MMWEC is a not-for-profit, public corporation and political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts created by an Act of the General Court in 1975 and authorized to issue tax-exempt debt to finance a wide range of energy facilities.  MMWEC provides a variety of power supply, financial, risk management and other services to the state's consumer-owned, municipal utilities. 
View Full Story

More Lanesborough Stories