Williams Receives Another Racial Harassment Report

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A Williams College student has reported an incident of racial harassment on a public street late Saturday night, according to a campus-wide email from school officials.
 
Director of Campus Safety Services Jeffrey Palmer and Vice President for Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Leticia S. E. Haynes sent the email Wednesday morning about an incident that reportedly occurred at about 1 a.m. Sunday morning on Hoxsey Street.
 
A Williams student reported that, "an individual driving a white 4-door pickup with Mass plates shouting a racial slur and threatening physical harm," the email read.
 
The email was accompanied by a photo of the vehicle alleged to be involved in the incident. The license plate is illegible in the photo.
 
"We are asking anyone with information about the vehicle [pictured] to contact Campus Safety Services at 413-597-4444 or the Williamstown Police Department at 413-458-5733," the email read. "We thank the student who contacted us about this incident and to remind everyone that hateful actions like these have no place here."
 
The email reminded anyone needing additional support to reach out to Haynes' office or the Davis Center at Williams.
 
The campus has seen an increase in such incidents since the start of the fall semester, prompting several such emails to the college community and a discussion at Town Hall by Williamstown's Racial Equity, Accessibility, Diversity and Inclusion Committee.
 

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School Budget, Environment, Recreation Highlight Williamstown Town Meeting

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — This month's annual town meeting returns to a familiar venue.
 
What goes on in that building the rest of the year could be a major topic of discussion at the Tuesday, May 19, gathering.
 
After two years (2020 and '21) on Williams College's football field and four years ('22 through '25) at Mount Greylock Regional School, the town's legislative body will be back at Williamstown Elementary School for a 7 p.m. meeting to decide on municipal spending and other town business.
 
The largest segment of the municipal budget goes to the public schools, and the spending plan for PreK-12 education likely will see a floor amendment intended to add an additional $120,000 to fund a math interventionist at Williamstown Elementary School.
 
The elected seven-member School Committee that governs the Mount Greylock Regional School District has proposed a $30.9 million operating budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1. The local share of that budget is meted out in assessments to the member towns of Lanesborough and Williamstown, which each vote whether to approve its assessment at town meeting.
 
Williamstown's share of the operating and capital expenditures for the regional school district is $16.8 million under the budget approved by the School Committee, an increase of a little more than $2 million, or 13.65 percent, from the budget for the current fiscal/school year.
 
A group of WES parents concerned about the mathematics instruction at the Grade prekindergarten-6 school plans to bring an amendment to town meeting to add the additional $120,000 — about 0.7 percent of the proposed assessment — to fund the interventionist position.
 
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