NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The School Building Committee has some important dates coming up as it determines which school project will be submitted for approval to the Massachusetts School Building Authority.  

 

It will meet twice in September to narrow down the current options to three — and this will largely depend on the grade configuration that the School Committee will vote Aug. 29. 

 

The school district has held one public forum already on grade configuration (the video can be found here) and a second one is set for Tuesday, Aug. 22, at 5:30 p.m. at Brayton Elementary's Welcome Center and over Zoom. 

 

The question is whether to keep two kindergarten through Grade 6 schools or to create a preK through Grade 2 school and a Grade 3-6 school. The decision will help determine whether to close Brayton or Greylock elementary schools. The choices are currently to renovate or rebuild Greylock or renovate Brayton as either combined or split grade schools, made back in June. 

 

The MSBA is expected to reimburse up to 80 percent of eligible spending on a school project. The project is currently on schedule and on budget. 

 

A survey put out by the schools system had 877 responses of which 82 percent were from North Adams, 44 percent from parents/guardians, 25 percent from faculty and 22.4 percent from residents (those who do not have children in the schools or will not be affected by the reconfiguration).

 

Those preferring either an preK-2 or preK-6 school were about even; broken down into sectors, faculty was more in favor of the split grade option while parents/guardians leaned marginally toward preK-6. 

 

Superintendent Barbara Malkas said there have been a number of issues raised, including concerns over transportation, keeping children in the same families in the same school, the concept of the neighborhood school 

 

Others saw a split in grades as keeping children with their peers through their education journey, having a more focused development program, not having to travel between schools for programming and having more opportunities for inclusion with peers.  

 

"Amongst among the faculty respondents, certainly the benefit of being able to collaborate across grade levels really, I think, educators can definitely see the benefits of that," she said of splitting the grades. "And with ensuring that there's greater consistency with regards to curriculum delivery and instructional modality."

 

The recommendation for grade configuration will be made by the policy committee, Malkas said. "The policy that governs our organization of our schools is called the organization of instruction. It is an approved School Committee policy."

 

The committee also reviewed the criteria it will use for determining school project selection, such as cost, siting, community connection and access, education delivery and social emotional learning support, technology, special education, parent engagement, traffic patters, dropoff and pickup, work and meeting areas, STEAM learning, welcoming, proximity to fields and play areas, environmental issues and sustainability, transportation, neighborhood, topography, pedestrian access, parking, security and emergency access, and cohesive layout and accessibility. 

 

"The option development will happen after the Aug. 29 decision on which which way to go with the grade configuration," said Julia McFadden of TSKP Studio, the project's designer. "Then we'll develop the options and bring them to you, then we'll have those options cost estimated and bring that to you. 

 

"And then you'll be asked to select a preferred option from those three."

 

She anticipated coming to the Sept. 5 School Building Committee meeting with some initial development of the options and more fully developed product by the second meeting on Sept. 21. 

 

"And then finally, Oct. 12, is selecting the preferred option because we'll be coming up with cost estimates at that time that factor in to the other metrics that we're reviewing," McFadden said. 

 

The School Committee will vote on the recommendation on Oct. 17 and the preferred schematic design will be submitted to the MSBA on Oct. 26. 

 

Tuesday's meeting had a quorum but was lightly attended. That can't happen in these upcoming meetings, said Malkas. 

 

"We need to make sure the message gets out that these are important meetings coming up," she said. "While tonight we don't have a lot of expectation for School Building Committee decision making, the coming meetings in September, there will be expectations of voting on items that will ultimately determine the outcome of this project."