image description

Hike in County's COVID-19 Positivity Rate Drives Mount Greylock District to Remote Learning

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
Print Story | Email Story
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Two days after Mount Greylock regional middle-high school went fully remote, the entire PreK-12 district followed suit.
 
Mount Greylock Regional School District Superintendent Jason McCandless on Thursday notified families that Lanesborough Elementary and Williamstown Elementary will be going remote because of an increase in the county's COVID-19 positivity rate.
 
On Thursday, the commonwealth reported that the county's rate was 3.01 percent in the Weekly COVID-19 Public Health Report.
 
"This summer we negotiated for a 3 percent test positivity rate in Berkshire County as a component in our metrics to determine a move to remote learning with input from public health officials and knowledge that our staff, as well as our students, draw from more than Lanesborough and Williamstown," McCandless wrote. "Berkshire County was and is our best proxy for regional trends across our community."
 
Thirteen out of 14 Massachusetts counties saw an increase in the test positivity rate for the 14-day period that ended Dec. 1.
 
Berkshire County's increase likely stems from two sources: a rise in the number of people testing positive and a drop off in the number of overall tests.
 
Throughout September, October and most of November, the county's positivity rate was impacted by the aggressive COVID-19 testing program at Williams College, which sent its students home to finish the semester remotely (by design) on Nov. 20.
 
Between Aug. 17 and Dec. 2, Williams conducted 46,218 tests of students, faculty and staff with just 12 positives for a positivity rate of .026 percent.
 
Over the course of about 15 weeks of testing — including the period of Nov. 20 to Dec. 2, when the school was just testing staff — the college conducted nearly 3,100 tests per week (6,200 every two weeks).
 
The positivity rate for the county released on Thursday by the Department of Public Health is based on 20,731 tests in a two-week period, or 10,366 tests per week.
 
Dropping most of the Williams College tests out of the denominator meant that the county's 624 positive results in that period were enough to drive the positivity rate to 3.01 percent (actually, 3.00998).
 
In other words, hypothetically, if the county had the same 624 positive tests but 25,000 total tests (the 20,731 tests it actually had plus another 4,269 from the college), its positivity rate would have been 2.5 percent.
 
North County's other residential college also played a role. The Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts conducted a testing program that produced 3,958 tests through Nov. 30, with a positivity rate of .2 percent, according to the college's website. MCLA moved all of its classes to remote after the Thanksgiving break, which reduced its need for testing starting in the middle of last week.
 
Thursday's announcement by McCandless means all three schools in the Mount Greylock Regional School District will be remote through at least the end of next week. The target for a return to hybrid learning is Monday, Dec. 14, pending the numbers released by Mass DPH next Thursday.

Tags: COVID-19,   MGRSD,   


More Coronavirus Updates

Keep up to date on the latest COVID-19 news:


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

Williams Seeking Town Approval for New Indoor Practice Facility

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Planning Board last week gave Williams College the first approval it needs to build a 55,000-square foot indoor athletic facility on the north side of its campus.
 
Over the strenuous objection of a Southworth Street resident, the board found that the college's plan for a "multipurpose recreation center" or MRC off Stetson Road has adequate on-site parking to accommodate its use as an indoor practice facility to replace Towne Field House, which has been out of commission since last spring and was demolished this winter.
 
The college plans a pre-engineered metal that includes a 200-meter track ringing several tennis courts, storage for teams, restrooms, showers and a training room. The athletic surface also would be used as winter practice space for the school's softball and baseball teams, who, like tennis and indoor track, used to use the field house off Latham Street.
 
Since the planned structure is in the watershed of Eph's Pond, the college will be before the Conservation Commission with the project.
 
It also will be before the Zoning Board of Appeals, on Thursday, for a Development Plan Review and relief from the town bylaw limiting buildings to 35 feet in height. The new structure is designed to have a maximum height of 53 1/2 feet and an average roof height of 47 feet.
 
The additional height is needed for two reasons: to meet the NCAA requirement for clearance above center court on a competitive tennis surface (35 feet) and to include, on one side, a climbing wall, an element also lost when Towne Field House was razed.
 
The Planning Board had a few issues to resolve at its March 12 meeting. The most heavily discussed involved the parking determination for a use not listed in the town's zoning bylaws and a decision on whether access from town roads to the building site in the middle of Williams' campus was "functionally equivalent" to the access that would be required under the town's subdivision rules and regulations.
 
View Full Story

More Williamstown Stories