NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Brayton/Greylock school project is back in the feasibility phase along with expanded options for the School Building Committee to review. 

 

Superintendent Barbara Malkas updated the School Committee on Tuesday of the Massachusetts School Building Authority's decision received on March 1  

 

The project had been back in the "eligibility" phase because of the stop and start that occurred after MSBA recommended that the city not pursue only a renovation of Greylock and recommended that Brayton School be brought into the mix as the city looks to consolidate to one school in the West End. 

 

The administration had been in talks with the MSBA about the potential for reconfiguring the grade structure so that one school might be an early education center. After reviewing the district's update enrollment figures, the authority has agreed to exploring that option as well as keeping the schools as kindergarten through Grade 6.

 

"We have been identified as having either 265 students — that's what we would be building our school or renovating our school for if you maintain it as a K through 6 because pre-K numbers get added in after the project is approved," she said, "or 240 students if we are looking at a kindergarten to 2 school, so not much difference in terms of the numbers."

 

In her letter to Mayor Jennifer Macksey, chair of the School Committee, Mary Pichetti, director of MSBA's capital planning, said the authority had looked at two additional years of enrollment data, local birth data for three years and updated female population projects from the University of Massachusetts' Donahue Institute. This is in addition to enrollment figures provided a couple years ago when only Greylock was being considered. 

 

The numbers show a drop of nearly 200 students overall since 2016. The MSBA says this indicates continued decline 10 years out that is projected at 535 students in K-6 and 235 in K-2. These figures were adjusted up for out-of-district enrollment at 20 and five, respectively.

 

"They outline the methodology that they use in order to ascertain those two values. Those values are important because that is part of the scope of the project in terms of square footage that will be reimbursed by the MSBA so these were important numbers to have as we consider our options," said Malkas. 

 

School Committee member Richard Alcombright, also a member of the building committee, asked that Malkas reiterate that no decision has been made on which school might be renovated, rebuilt or sited. 

 

She confirmed that those decisions have yet to be determined but added that the MSBA's letter "expanded our options, not limited our options."

 

"We're going to end up with maybe 15 to 17 different options," Malkas said. "And then we'll go through a process by which we look at those options and start to narrow that down based on the feedback we've received in the education planning that included our teachers, community members, as well as members of the School Building Committee and administrators. ...

 

"We're nowhere near yet determining that preferred option, and it really has broadened our opportunity to consider both sides equally, and to really consider what's in the best interest of servicing our students for the next 50 years."

 

Design firm TSKP was hired last year and has been working on the feasibility study and the last update on the timeline put preliminary plans to be submitted for an October vote by the MSBA's board of directors to move into the schematic phase. Malkas said plans will be presented to the community for feedback with expectation of a vote on the project a year from now.