Great Barrington — Residents in Great Barrington, Stockbridge, and West Stockbridge are set to vote on November 4 on whether or not to approve a new high school building to replace Monument Mountain High School.
According to Great Barrington’s property database, the current school building was built in 1966.
During special town meetings back in late October 2023, a potential school district merger between eight Berkshire County towns was voted down. A project to construct a new high school building to replace Monument Mountain was included in the potential merger.
After the merger plan was defeated, the school district formed a School Building Committee that includes residents from the school district, along with outside consultants William Rawn Associates, DiNisco Design, and Skanska. Architectural firms William Rawn Associates and DiNisco Design originate from Boston, while Skanska is a project development and construction group based in New York City.
For several months, the School Building Committee examined several different options for a new building. The committee eventually decided in March to pursue plans for a new three-story, 142,800-square-foot building.
According to a press release by School District Communications Coordinator Sheela Clary [Disclaimer: Sheela Clary is a contributing author for The Berkshire Edge], on June 18 the building committee submitted its plans, including its schematic designs, to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA). Clary wrote that the MSBA is scheduled to review the project and its budget and formalize the state reimbursement at their August 27 meeting.
According to documents from the school district, the total cost of the building project will be approximately $152 million.
If MSBA approves funding, the district’s share will be approximately $89.4 million, with about $61.1 million paid for from MSBA, and about $1.59 million in incentives from the MassSave energy efficiency program.
According to the school district’s website, the tax impact to all three towns will be known after the MSBA’s decision on the school building project.
At the most recent Great Barrington Selectboard meeting on June 23, School Committee Vice Chair Richard Dohoney told the board that the school district’s regional agreement, which includes the funding formula for all three towns, dates back to 1977. He explained that some alterations have been made to the funding formula over time, including in 2017 when residents at member town meetings agreed that costs would be divided into capital costs and operational costs. “However, this change was grandfathered in,” Dohoney said. “So, any capital expenses that existed at that time in 2017, including the expenses for our two beautiful schools we already have (Monument Mountain Regional High School and W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School), stayed under the old formula. But this new formula for capital costs [is something that we] may incur in the future. The [new] high school may be one of those costs.”
Dohoney said that the current funding formula for the school district in the three towns “has nothing to do with the population of each town, and has nothing to do with the [student] population [from each town] in the schools. It all has to do with the value of each of the three town’s real estate, including the numbers your [property] assessors use.” He said that it is likely that the same funding formula would be used for the building of the new high school, but that the project would be bonded out over a period of time.
Dohoney said the school committee decided that the November 4 vote will be a districtwide vote instead of a town-by-town vote—which means that the votes from all three towns will be tallied collectively.
If approved, the new school building project would break ground in 2027, with the building expected to open in 2029.
In her press release, Clary wrote that the new high school would be located outside of Monument Mountain High School’s existing footprint, which means that the school would be fully operational during construction. Clary added that the incoming fifth graders at W.E.B. Du Bois Middle School would be the first class to attend the new school for all four years of their high school learning.
According to Superintendent Peter Dillon, the plans include demolishing the current school building after the new school building is completed. The location of the current school building will become an athletic field.
When asked for the estimated costs of the potential demolition project Dillion wrote via email “It’s in the SD report = almost 2,000 pages.”
Editor’s note: This article has been corrected with plans for the current school building.
