Williamstown Elementary Clothing Sale Benefits Classrooms

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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A line of boots ready for winter at the Williamstown PTO clothing sale.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The PTO clothing sale at Williamstown Elementary School is about more than hand-me-downs.
 
It is about lending a hand to the teachers in the classroom.
 
The sale returns for its 10th academic year on Sunday, Oct. 5, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the school cafeteria.
 
It is the major fundraising activity of the school's parent-teacher group, whose other fundraising endeavors include collecting Box Tops for Education, running a "Walk for WES" walkathon, organizing school pictures and operating a "spirit store."
 
Last year, the clothing sale raised about $8,000, according to PTO President Joan Jones.
 
"We support the teachers through things like Staff Appreciation Week, and the money we raise goes to individual classroom activities and materials for the library," Jones said. "Each teacher is allotted an amount they can use in whatever way they want.
 
"For example, my daughter last year was in kindergarten, and there was a parent who did a silk-screen T-shirt project that the kids designed at the end of the year. ... That's the kind of thing they do."
 
The money also helps fund field trips, the annual beginning-of-the-year "Watermelon Social," the field day held in June, materials for the school library, and a scholarship program that rents instruments for pupils wishing to participate in the school band whose families cannot afford the expense.
 
"Then we also do things that are enhancements of things that aren't in the curriculum like [this month's] Words Are Wonderful festival," Jones said. "That's a PTO-run event that the PTO does on its own outside of the school curriculum. We bring visiting authors in. Community readers come in and read to the kids."
 
Last week, a group of volunteers had taken over half of a currently unused classroom to sort and price some of the thousands of shoes, boots, coats, hats, dresses, pants and other items that make up the sale. The organizers collect the gently used items year round and give them rock-bottom prices.
 
Veteran sale organizer Cecilia Hirsch said the sale has benefits that go beyond the money raised.
 
"Every now and then, we wonder if it's worth it," Hirsch said. "We could raise as much money with a golf tournament or a fancy dinner. But the thing we always come back to is that it's green."

Tags: clothing,   fundraiser,   PTO,   

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Mount Greylock School Committee Votes Slight Increase to Proposed Assessments

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Thursday voted unanimously to slightly increase the assessment to the district's member towns from the figures in the draft budget presented by the administration.
 
The School Committee opted to lower the use of Mount Greylock's reserve account by $70,000 and, instead, increase by that amount the share of the fiscal year 2025 operating budget shared proportionally by Lanesborough and Williamstown taxpayers.
 
The budget prepared by the administration and presented to the School Committee at its annual public hearing on Thursday included $665,000 from the district's Excess and Deficiency account, the equivalent of a municipal free cash balance, an accrual of lower-than-anticipated expenses and higher-than-anticipated revenue in any given year.
 
That represented a 90 percent jump from the $350,000 allocated from E&D for fiscal year 2024, which ends on June 30. And, coupled with more robust use of the district's tuition revenue account (7 percent more in FY25) and School Choice revenue (3 percent more), the draw down on E&D is seen as a stopgap measure to mitigate a spike in FY25 expenses and an unsustainable budgeting strategy long term, administrators say.
 
The budget passed by the School Committee on Thursday continues to rely more heavily on reserves than in years past, but to a lesser extent than originally proposed.
 
Specifically, the budget the panel approved includes a total assessment to Williamstown of $13,775,336 (including capital and operating costs) and a total assessment to Lanesborough of $6,425,373.
 
As a percentage increase from the FY24 assessments, that translates to a 3.90 percent increase to Williamstown and a 3.38 percent increase to Lanesborough.
 
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