Lanesborough's Overtures to Superintendent Irks School Committee
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The School Committee is irritated about being sidelined again by town officials over school business, this time over the future of the shared superintendent of schools' office.
Town Manager Paul Sieloff wrote a letter in May on behalf of the Board of Selectmen to Superintendent Douglas Dias looking to strike up a conversation about the future of the office. The Mount Greylock Regional Middle and High School is under renovation and because the state's reimbursement formula does not fund building central offices, the district's administration will eventually have to find a new home.
The Selectmen felt with a shrinking school-age population, there is enough room at the elementary school to accommodate the office. Secondly, the town hoped to start a discussion of a lease agreement, which would help offset the town of Lanesborough's portion of the Mount Greylock building project.
"We shouldn't be waiting until the last moment. We should be laying the groundwork now for possible places we can go," Selectman Robert Ericson said on Monday.
However, that letter was greeted with disdain by the School Committee. At the committee's June meeting, Chairwoman Regina DiLego took offense with the letter because it left the School Committee out of the conversation entirely. The letter was brought to the School Committee by Dias.
"Use of the building is up to the School Committee, not the town manager and Board of Selectmen. Any lease agreements are up to the School Committee and not up to the town manager or Board of Selectmen. This is not even in their purview," DiLego said.
"It is one more instance of them not recognizing the School Committee has full authority over the building and what goes on inside of it."
There has been a power struggle over the lines of jurisdiction between the elected School Committee and the elected Board of Selectmen for the last several years and particularly debated during the conversations around the building of a new middle and high school.
The letter also appeared to be a communication failure between the Board of Selectmen and Dias. Dias presented the letter and its timing as if the discussion was centered on the period of time during construction while the Board of Selectmen talking about postconstruction. Dias has just moved into empty classrooms at the existing Mount Greylock facility and found the timing of the letter "curious."
"At least for the next year or two years, we will be comfortably at Mount Greylock," Dias said.
Dias isn't rejecting the notion altogether, saying he'd like to at least entertain the concept and find out what space the town was thinking of using. But overall, Dias "has a problem being in either" elementary school. He feels there should be no perception of one of the two towns having preferable treatment because of the central office location, and that it should be located between them.
Lanesborough is in an elementary supervisory union with Williamstown; both towns are part of the regional high school district. Both the supervisory union and regional district share the superintendent and other administrative services.
The superintendent further doesn't believe there is enough space in the elementary school to house the five-person administrative team and offices without a new wing being built.
The response from the School Committee was characterized as "negative" on Monday night by Selectman Henry "Hank" Sayers and citizen Ronald Tinkham, a former Mount Greylock school committee member. Selectmen Chairman John Goerlach led a motion to respond to the School Committee saying the board does "not approve of their actions" nor the committee's attitude.
"To give negative comment isn't really where we should be coming from," Goerlach said.
Sieloff said the letter didn't overstep any bounds because it simply asked to start a conversation.
"All we did was offer to have discussion with it," he said. "There are some advantages if we could work something out."
Goerlach added that the town's Highway Department does a number of routine maintenance items at the school, such as plowing during the winter as well as specific projects.
Tags: administrative offices, LES, school administrator,
