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Mount Greylock Continues Teacher Talks Over Remote Learning

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee met on Tuesday but did not have a resolution on two issues stemming from the school closure that entered its third week on Monday.
 
Districts statewide are closed through at least May 4 by order of the governor. Last week, the commissioner of education advised school officials to implement remote learning plans to continue students' education during the closure.
 
On Friday, Superintendent Kimberley Grady and other members of the administration sent an email to the district's families explaining plans for remote learning the PreK-12 district.
 
"We met this afternoon with the [teachers union] executive board and had a productive conversation about the ways in which we can transition to a more structured distance learning experience beginning the week of April 6," the letter read in part.
 
On Tuesday, the School Committee's Negotiations Subcommittee held an executive session to talk with the union, and a 4:45 p.m. special meeting of the full committee had agenda items to vote on memoranda of agreement between the district and its teachers and paraprofessionals.
 
But Regina DiLego of the Negotiations Subcommittee informed her colleagues that the discussions will need to continue.
 
After the meeting, Grady said that Tuesday's negotiations lasted an hour, and she characterized them as productive. The School Committee's subcommittee will meet again on Thursday.
 
In the meantime, the School Committee also needs to negotiate a contract adjustment with Dufour Tours, which provides bus transportation service to the district.
 
"We had a discussion today with the legal counsel for the district," School Committee member Jamie Art said. "He is going to do some follow-up review on the details of the federal stimulus package with an eye toward seeing how that will inform the renegotiation of the contracts with the bus company."
 
An agenda item to approve a bus contract also was deferred to a future meeting.
 
Grady told the committee that the administration continues to coordinate with town officials in Lanesborough and Williamstown and reached out to families with information about the instructional resources that currently are available on the district's website.
 
And Mount Greylock continues to provide lunches Monday through Friday to students and seniors in both its member towns, though that schedule will change next week.
 
"Starting next week, we will still do meals five days per week, but we'll only have deliveries and pickups on Monday, Wednesday and Friday," Grady said. "This way the administrative team who has been here since the beginning gets a little rest."
 
Meals for Monday and Tuesday will be delivered on Monday. Meals for Wednesday and Thursday will be delivered on Wednesday.
 
Grady again noted that any resident of Lanesborough or Williamstown who would like a meal under the grab-and-go program should contact the school  at 413-458-9582, Ext. 1195, or email lunches@mgrhs.org.

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Williamstown Select Board Awards ARPA Funds to Remedy Hall

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Select Board on Monday allocated $20,000 in COVID-19-era relief funds to help a non-profit born of the pandemic era that seeks to provide relief to residents in need.
 
On a unanimous vote, the board voted to grant the American Rescue Plan Act money to support Remedy Hall, a resource center that provides "basic life necessities" and emotional support to "individuals and families experiencing great hardship."
 
The board of the non-profit approached the Select Board with a request for $12,000 in ARPA Funds to help cover some of the relief agency's startup costs, including the purchase of a vehicle to pick up donations and deliver items to clients, storage rental space and insurance.
 
The board estimates that the cost of operating Remedy Hall in its second year — including some one-time expenses — at just north of $31,500. But as board members explained on Monday night, some sources of funding are not available to Remedy Hall now but will be in the future.
 
"With the [Williamstown] Community Chest, you have to be in existence four or five years before you can qualify for funding," Carolyn Greene told the Select Board. "The same goes for state agencies that would typically be the ones to fund social service agencies.
 
"ARPA made sense because [Remedy Hall] is very much post-COVID in terms of the needs of the town becoming more evident."
 
In a seven-page letter to the town requesting the funds, the Remedy Hall board wrote that, "need is ubiquitous and we are unveiling that truth daily."
 
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