Letter: Delay Vote on New Williamstown Fire Station

Letter to the Editor01:50PM / Wednesday, January 25, 2023Print Story | Email Story

To the Editor,

There is no question that the Williamstown Fire District needs a new modern facility to replace its antiquated 73-year-old Water Street station. While a new fire station is long overdue, the proposed $25 million building is challenging to justify.

In response to concerns about the size and cost of the project, the district recently released a "Comparison of Size of Proposed Williamstown Fire Station to Other Fire Stations" study on its official website and Facebook page. However, the comparison study overlooks several details and, when thoroughly examined, provides the best evidence why the Feb. 28 vote should be postponed so a re-evaluation can occur, and a new design can be presented for consideration.

In summary, a breakdown of the comparison study reveals the following:

• Every community listed has a population greater than Williamstown, excluding Wellfleet (Armonk, N.Y., is a hamlet of North Castle, population 11,765.)

• Every community is a full-time agency, or a full-time department complemented by call or volunteer firefighters, excluding both Armonk and Putnam Valley.

• Every fire department provides ambulance service to their community, excluding Newton (7,500 fire calls for service) and Putnam Valley, N.Y., (472 fire calls for service), both fire service-only agencies.

• Every fire department listed receives more calls for service compared to Williamstown (less than 300 a year) and, in almost every instance, by several thousand.

• Williamstown has seven pieces of equipment. All the communities listed that only have a single fire station (as proposed in Williamstown), has more equipment, sometimes doubling Williamstown (e.g., Foxborough 14, Plainville 13, Wellfleet 10)

• The new Plainville Fire Department was constructed as a combined municipal complex that accommodates the new police department and town hall. The construction cost for the police, fire, and town hall was $34 million.

The district provided regional data on new fire departments but curiously bypassed a local project. On Dec. 8, 2022, voters in Lenox unanimously approved a $20 million public safety complex to house their police, fire, and ambulance. The Lenox FD is a full-time department complemented by reserve/volunteer firefighters and responded to 1,873 calls for service in 2021. It is fiscally irresponsible to ask the Williamstown voters to approve a $25 million stand-alone fire station without studying how Lenox can build a public safety complex for $5 million less.

Williamstown requires a new fire station; however, the project must be realistic to our community and not jeopardize current government services and future projects.

Scott E. McGowan
Williamstown, Mass.

Tags: fire station,

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Letter: Incomplete Picture from Greylock School Committee

Letter to the Editor06:30PM / Wednesday, October 28, 2026

To the Editor:

At the October Mount Greylock School Committee meeting, there was much celebration over the student growth percentiles (SGP) from last year's MCAS test data (Spring 2026). Growth is worth celebrating. But I worry the meeting, and the coverage of it, left families and our community with an incomplete picture of how our students are doing in math.

"Growth" sounds like it means scores went up, but that isn’t quite what SGP measures. SGP compares each student to students in the state who scored about the same the year before, then ranks how they did this year against that group. If a whole group of similar students decreases, the student who decreases the least can still earn a high growth percentile. A strong SGP tells us our students did better than their peers who scored similarly the year before. It doesn't tell us whether they are at grade level.

For example, the current 6th grade class at Williamstown Elementary School (WES) has decreased in their grade-level math proficiency every year since their 3rd grade MCAS. In 2024, 64 percent of the class was meeting expectations; in 2025 48 percent were at grade level, and in 2026 only 33 percent of their class met grade-level expectations. Our current WES 5th grade class follows a similar trend, with 48 percent meeting grade-level math expectations last year vs 56 percent meeting expectations in 2025 when they were in 3rd grade.

Not every class follows this pattern; our current 7th graders gained to 62 percent last year. But seeing entire classes decrease is something that deserves our attention.

Growth comparisons across the state provide useful information, but they do not tell the complete story. We also need to look at where our students are in terms of grade-level proficiency and how those numbers are changing from year to year within the Mt. Greylock school district. This will be our first year with the math interventionist role filled at WES and our second year with the new i-Ready curriculum.

As we watch whether these changes are working, I hope the School Committee will discuss proficiency alongside growth in its public meetings, so our community can see the full picture. Growth matters, but it isn’t enough if fewer of our kids are reaching grade level each year.

Sincerely,

Jenna Hasenkampf
Williamstown, Mass.

Hasenkampf is a parent of WES students in Grades 2 and 4.

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