Letter: Reject Article 41

Letter to the Editor03:00PM / Tuesday, May 21, 2024Print Story | Email Story

To the Editor:

Town meeting should reject Article 41 because sexual orientation, color of skin, health and wellness, gender, environmental issues and changes in the meaning of English words (including the word rainbow) are not well-represented by a flag in any community.

Work in the community to make the American flag ensure inclusivity, support, a sense of belonging, respect for others and acceptance among human beings who have the right to live with dignity.

If this flag is added to the three now recognized we could ask: Where does it end? The American flag represents the hope we all have for our community.

Martha Dailey
Williamstown, Mass.

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Mount Greylock School Committee Hears 'Remarkable' MCAS Data

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
04:54AM / Tuesday, October 13, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Thursday heard that students across the district showed significant growth in their performance on the commonwealth's spring 2026 round of standardized testing.

Superintendent Joe Bergeron and committee member Curtis Elfenbein offered the panel its first look at the results of the most recent Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests.

"One thing I do want to say is that many people can look at scores and see them in a vacuum and think the score is the thing," Elfenbein said. "But in an academic setting, there's performance and then there's growth. And over the last decade or so of my teaching career, there was a massive shift toward an increase in focus on growth."

Elfenbein explained that the "student growth percentile" in MCAS reporting measures how an individual student performs in a given year relative to students who got the same score on a given test (mathematics or English language arts) in the prior year.

"So Timmy and Joanny each get 75 percent of the questions right on the fifth grade ELA MCAS," Elfenbein said. "Then they take the sixth grade ELA MCAS, and whoever improves on their score more gets a higher student growth percentile."

An SGP of 50 percent means that a student showed typical growth relative to his or her peers.

And in that measure of growth, Elfenbein said the district's results are "remarkable."

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