South Williamstown Community Association-Repair Cafe

03:37PM / Wednesday, October 08, 2025Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The South Williamstown Community Association (SWCA) in partnership with Williamstown Rural Lands (WRL) invites the public to our Fall Repair Café at Sheep Hill, 671 Cold Spring Road (Route 7) on Saturday afternoon, Oct. 11 from 1 to 4 p.m.

Volunteer "fixers" will be onsite to repair a number of items including: small electrical items, wooden furniture, costume jewelry, leather, window screens, and clothing. There will also be computer advice, blade sharpening (knives, scissors, small tools), and simple bike repairs. Bring a few (limit 4-5) of your items for repair.

The group is continuing to partner with the BagShare Project to make reusable shopping bags. There will be materials and grommet machines to make them.

Repair Café is a free kid and family-friendly event, although donations are gladly accepted, they are not required. There will be refreshments.

iBerkshires.com Text Ads

Save & Earn with Greylock

3.30% APY 6-month certificate. Click to learn more! Insured by NCUA.

www.greylock.org

rk MILES Blding Materials

Are You Ready to Update Your Home? Start With rk MILES. 4 Locations (800)670-7433

www.rkmiles.com

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

Mount Greylock School Committee Hears 'Remarkable' MCAS Data

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
04:54AM / Tuesday, October 13, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Thursday heard that students across the district showed significant growth in their performance on the commonwealth's spring 2026 round of standardized testing.

Superintendent Joe Bergeron and committee member Curtis Elfenbein offered the panel its first look at the results of the most recent Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests.

"One thing I do want to say is that many people can look at scores and see them in a vacuum and think the score is the thing," Elfenbein said. "But in an academic setting, there's performance and then there's growth. And over the last decade or so of my teaching career, there was a massive shift toward an increase in focus on growth."

Elfenbein explained that the "student growth percentile" in MCAS reporting measures how an individual student performs in a given year relative to students who got the same score on a given test (mathematics or English language arts) in the prior year.

"So Timmy and Joanny each get 75 percent of the questions right on the fifth grade ELA MCAS," Elfenbein said. "Then they take the sixth grade ELA MCAS, and whoever improves on their score more gets a higher student growth percentile."

An SGP of 50 percent means that a student showed typical growth relative to his or her peers.

And in that measure of growth, Elfenbein said the district's results are "remarkable."

View Full Story