Meet Teachers at Berkshire Waldorf School

09:01AM / Friday, January 21, 2022Print Story | Email Story

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Berkshire Waldorf School (formerly Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School) announced the appointment of Andrew Gilligan as First Grade teacher for the 2022-23 school year.

Families whose children will be six by Sept. 1, 2022 and interested community members are invited to meet Mr. Gilligan, along with First Grade subject teachers, at the school's Meet the First Grade Teachers event Saturday, Jan. 29 at 10:30am via Zoom.

Parents and caregivers can register for this live, virtual, free event at berkshirewaldorfschool.org, or by contacting Admissions Director Robyn Coe at admissions@berkshirewaldorfschool.org.

Andrew Gilligan has taught children across the Elementary and Middle School grades as well as Early Childhood for the past twelve years. He is currently a class teacher at the Seattle Waldorf School, where he has taught First and Second Grades for the past two years. Mr. Gilligan was a Class Teacher for First through Fourth Grades and Sixth through Eighth Grades at Meadowbrook Waldorf School in Richmond, RI, where he was also a member of the Board of Trustees and the Core Group of Teachers, leaders of the fiscal and pedagogical decision-making for the school. Mr. Gilligan earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Vermont, and completed both his Elementary Education and Waldorf Education Certificates, as well as his Masters of Education degree, from Antioch University New England.

At Berkshire Waldorf School, as in most Waldorf schools worldwide, Elementary School class teachers start with their class in First Grade and move through the Elementary School curriculum with their class, to build strong, long-term relationships, for up to eight years. Berkshire Waldorf School is accepting applications for the Class of 2030 for Fall 2022. The application deadline is Feb. 1.

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Lee Wants Bioremediation in Housatonic River Vernal Pool Study

05:24AM / Thursday, September 03, 2026

LEE, Mass. — The town has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric to include PCB bioremediation in its vernal pool study on the Housatonic River.

Lee officials are urging the EPA to require GE to add a bioremediation treatment arm to the vernal-pool study or provide the public with a clear explanation for why such testing is being excluded.

"This is exactly the kind of question EPA and GE should be asking before final remedy decisions are locked in," Select Board Chair Bob Jones said in a statement released to the press. "The town is not asking to slow the cleanup. We are asking EPA and GE to make the cleanup smarter, less destructive, and more protective over the long term."

An open house was held in Pittsfield earlier this summer for the Vernal Pool Pilot Study on Reach 5A of the Housatonic River, a five-mile stretch between the river's confluence and Lenox border.

EPA has required GE to conduct a Vernal Pool Pilot Study as part of the Housatonic River Rest of River remediation, comparing excavation and restoration with activated-carbon-based treatments, including a product called SediMite and powdered activated carbon, the town said.

Ten vernal pools will be cleaned of polychlorinated biphenyls in total, five with excavation and five with active carbon, and seven additional vernal pools will be monitored as controls. Construction will be complete around October, but the pools will be left to their natural processes and monitored with surveys and sampling for three years.

The Lee PCB Advisory Committee wrote a letter calling for the 21st-century approach it said could reduce long-term toxicity, avoid unnecessary destruction of sensitive habitats, and improve the effectiveness of the cleanup.

It states that Lee supports the study's purpose and agrees that EPA and GE must understand how cleanup activities affect sensitive vernal-pool ecosystems.

"The current pilot includes 10 treatment pools and seven control pools, while local officials understand that roughly 100 vernal pools may occur in the broader remediation corridor," the Aug. 27 letter reads.

"That makes the pilot study consequential: the methods tested now could shape how many sensitive wetlands are excavated, reconstructed, treated, or left with PCBs managed in place."

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