Berkshire Country Day Secondary School: a first semester report

12:00AM / Wednesday, December 06, 2000Print Story | Email Story

The bell rung for the end of first period, and students filled the hallway singing "That's AmorÃ©!" A girl spun elaborately out of the way of a group coming from the opposite direction. A music and outdoor education teacher stopping to speak to a visiting parent said, "It's fun here. At least, I have a good time!" She promised to keep an eye out for a student who was, at that moment, in a trumpet lesson. This activity hummed on Monday morning at the new Berkshire Country Day Secondary School (BCD2S). This expansion to the kindergarten-through-grade-nine Berkshire Country Day School, opened in September, is just completing its first semester. It is dedicated to providing private intellectual, emotional and moral education, said Whitman Smith, head of the secondary school. There are 45 students in grades nine and ten, and three hand-picked eleventh graders enrolled this year. The school will "grow with the curtain group," accepting younger students as the older students advance; in June of 2002, it will hold its first graduation ceremony for three. Smith said the school still serves a variety of students in the community, as BCD always has, and likes to have parents involved in all its activities. BCD2S has taken over and refurbished the Winthrop campus, a former Great Estate. Boston University owns the property and runs its Tanglewood Institute there in the summer months; the secondary school now rents and keeps up the property during the rest of the year. A back terrace where the students meet and have lunch in warm weather affords a view of a palisade walk, green lawns, and mountains. The lower campus built down the hill includes a theater, athletic facilities, art studio, tennis courts, a state-of-the-art science building, and a couple of marble fountains left from another age. The main building has kept its Gilded Age-era wood paneling, carved staircase, and plaster moulded ceilings. Comfortable chairs fill the corners of the wide tiled halls, and small classrooms. Every room has its own fireplace - including the restored 19th-century bathroom. Students becoming adults should be studying in an adult atmosphere, Smith said, and he trusts his students to take care of their campus. There are no locks on their lockers, either. So far, he says, the students have repaid his trust; whenever something has come up, he has asked for confessions and received them. He feels that confronting moral choice is a part of education, that his students should learn accountability and responsibility. The school hope to help students "find their strengths, refine their loves ... and flourish" in the tough years of adolescence, Smith said. Small rooms reinforce the school's emphasis on individual attention and small classes. Smith looked in at a French lesson that, like most classes here, had only five or six students. The teacher was explaining to the class, in fluent French, that she was going to give them two words to compare; she looked up and greeted Smith, also in French; he responded in the same language. As the door closed, she turned to write "Oprah" on the blackboard. The French class students sat in a loose semicircle, positioned, Smith said, so the teacher could walk around them. In most classrooms, though, the students and teachers sit around the same round Harkness table. Almost all BCD2S' language faculty are native speakers. The head of the department grew up on the French/Italian border, and speaks both languages fluently. They offer Latin and French, to continue the BCD language programs, and Spanish, Italian, German, and classical Greek. Students must take four years of one language, or three years of two. Students also take at least three years of history, math and science, four of English and two of a combination of the arts. The day school offers a rigorous liberal arts curriculum and college preparation, and expects that all of their graduates will go on to college. Students can take AP classes in many fields, and different departments can make accommodations for student interests outside the core curriculum; for example, a course in environmental science. Most of the faculty have master's degrees, Smith said. Several members of the faculty practice what they teach: a published novelist in the English department, an actor and director who has worked throughout New England in theater, and a practicing physician at the head of the Sciences. The school's small size allows a unique technical innovation: all students have laptops that they rent from the school. The campus is equipped with wireless air ports, so that students can connect to the Internet and the school intranet network anywhere on campus, without plugging their machines into phone lines. Students can hand in work electronically, or bring work to class while it is in progress, to workshop it. Outside the classroom, the school is rich in sports, arts, community service, and clubs. Boys and girls soccer teams competed against jayvee teams in the region, and each team won about half their games. Smith said it was good to see the teams pull together, and the community come to watch them play on their own fields, in their new uniforms. Students volunteer at St. Stephen's Table soup kitchen in Pittsfield. They have held charity walks to raise money for donations. Smith said they hope to continue to branch out past Stockbridge and Lenox and into the communities where the students live - Hinsdale, Columbia County, the South Berkshires. BCD2S students "have to think deeply and richly ... about their obligations to the community," Smith says. The school is becoming a community resource. Its music students have performed locally. And it hosted Steve Marcus from Columbia, an authority on 19th-century literature, for a community lecture early this fall; the students read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as required reading last summer. BCD2S is also about to stage its first production, an original work:Animalia: a New Ark Anthology. Students and faculty have worked together on the production under the direction of John Hadden, head of the theater program. The production is an anthology of literary vignettes; according to the press release for the event, the sources range from Kafka to Saroyan, The Far Side, Thurber, Atwood, Schweitzer, Neruda, Beckett and the Bible. The director and the actors selected and arranged them, Smith said, and have continued to rearrange them even in their latest rehearsals. During the second trimester, this winter, the entire school will collaborate on a production of As You Like It. Students will act, stage manage, design costumes and posters, build sets, run the box office, hang lights, and film a documentary about the whole process. Smith pointed to the lists of students assigned to the various tasks, already hanging in the Commons, a students' meeting room and dining area full of skylights. He added that Ken and Robin Almgren, former owners and chefs at the Federal House Inn, provide the school's food. A student approached Smith, asking to switch his English reading from The Spire to Jude the Obscure , which he had already begun reading. Smith agreed, and fell into conversation with him about Thomas Hardy: the student's mother called Jude a depressing book; Smith said "depressing" was an ugly word, but allowed that Hardy is naturalistic, and his stories tend to end in human defeat. Another student, passing another teacher in the hall, calls to her: "You never came!" She agrees apologetically. The trust and cooperation Smith values have gone a long way, in the past three months, to bring BCD2S to life. As one boy said to another when the bell rang, Monday: "Shall we proceed to classes?" "We shall!" "Adios!"

iBerkshires.com Text Ads

rk MILES Blding Materials

Are You Ready to Update Your Home? Start With rk MILES. 4 Locations (800)670-7433

www.rkmiles.com

RIBCO Supply

Check out our great lineup of Boss Plows, and spreaders. 2 Locations Clarksburg & Pittsfield!

ribcosupply.com

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

McCann Recognizes Superintendent Award Recipient

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
05:32PM / Tuesday, December 23, 2025

Landon LeClair and Superintendent James Brosnan with Landon's parents Eric and Susan LeClair, who is a teacher at McCann.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Superintendent's Award has been presented to Landon LeClair, a senior in McCann Technical School's advanced manufacturing course.

The presentation was made last Thursday by Superintendent Jame Brosnan after Principal Justin Kratz read from teachers' letters extolling LeClair's school work, leadership and dedication.

"He's become somewhat legendary at the Fall State Leadership Conference for trying to be a leader at his dinner table, getting an entire plate of cookies for him and all his friends," read Kratz to chuckles from the School Committee. "Landon was always a dedicated student and a quiet leader who cared about mastering the content."

LeClair was also recognized for his participation on the school's golf team and for mentoring younger teammates.

"Landon jumped in tutoring the student so thoroughly that the freshman was able to demonstrate proficiency on an assessment despite the missed class time for golf matches," read Kratz.

The principal noted that the school also received feedback from LeClair's co-op employer, who rated him with all fours.

"This week, we sent Landon to our other machine shop to help load and run parts in the CNC mill," his employer wrote to the school. LeClair was so competent the supervisor advised the central shop might not get him back.

View Full Story