North Adams Holding Session on School Project Options

09:47AM / Wednesday, September 27, 2023Print Story | Email Story

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The community will have the opportunity to provide input Thursday on the several options for a school building project.

The School Building Committee will hold a community/stakeholder engagement focus group in the welcome center at Brayton Elementary School beginning at 7 p.m. The session will also be available through Zoom at this link.

There will be a presentation on the designs for the Greylock/Brayton School Building Project and the opportunity to ask questions. A faculty and staff session will be held earlier in the afternoon.

The project is at the end of the preliminary design phase. The School Committee has voted to reorganize its grade structure into early education (prekindergarten to Grade 2) and upper elementary (Grades 3 to 6). Drury will remain as Grades 7 through 12.

The more recently renovated Colegrove Park Elementary School will host one of the grade levels and either Brayton or Greylock the other. One of those schools will close based on projected enrollment declines.

The current options are a renovation of Brayton, a renovation/addition at Greylock or a new Greylock School.

The School Building Committee have been reviewing the three options with a vote on a recommendation expected on Oct. 12; the School Committee will vote on whether to submit that preferred option to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for consideration.

Tags: brayton/greylock project,

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Berkshire Health Group Sets 8.75% Premium Rise for FY27

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:26AM / Thursday, January 29, 2026

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The towns and school districts in Berkshire Health Group will see an 8.75 percent increase in health insurance premiums in the fiscal year that begins on July 1.

Ten of the 12 voting members on the BHG board decided Wednesday morning at McCann Technical School on a vote of 8-2 to set the health plan rates for municipal employees in the member towns and districts.

The hike is a little more than half of the 16 percent increase the joint purchase group enacted for the current fiscal year.

Wednesday's decision will come as welcome news to town managers and administrators and school superintendents who may have been fearing a repeat of FY26, but the 8.75 percent hike still likely will constrain the spending decisions that officials will be making over the next few months as they prepare to send budgets to town meetings across the county this spring.

The main decision point for the BHG board on Wednesday morning: how to cover Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists or GLP-1 medications, commonly marketed under trade names like Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus.

The board decided that the weight-loss drugs no longer will be covered for all employees covered under BHG plans and will be covered only for those people who have been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

Joseph Anderson of Gallagher Benefit Services told the Berkshire Health Group board members that demand for the GLP-1 medications has exploded in their member units in recent years.

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