Terry Cowgill
Berkshire Hills seeks panel to explore possible merger with Southern Berkshire
More InfoGreat Barrington —The movement to consolidate school districts in southern Berkshire County took another step forward last week when the Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee voted to send a letter to a neighboring district asking to establish a planning group to explore consolidation.
At Thursday’s school committee meeting, Rich Dohoney of Great Barrington proposed that Berkshire Hills issue a written request to its member towns, along with the Southern Berkshire Regional School District and its members towns, to form a planning board “for the purpose of either forming, or consolidating into, a regional high school district to serve grades 9-12.” The motion requests a written response from Southern Berkshire by July 31, 2019.
Click here to see the text of Dohoney’s entire motion and click here to see the meeting and discussion on a video recording made by Community Television of the Southern Berkshires. Fast forward to 1:24:45 to see the discussion and the unanimous vote to approve the motion.
Before Dohoney read his motion, school committee member Daniel Weston recused himself and left the table. Though a resident of Stockbridge, Weston teaches at New Marlborough Central School, which is part of the Sheffield-based Southern Berkshire Regional School District.
An aerial view of the Berkshire Hills Regional School District campus.
Dohoney explained that the process for forming and adding to a regional school district is provided for in Massachusetts General Law ch. 71, Section 14.
“So I just thought if this issue is going to be continue to be discussed, it should be done in a formal process that’s laid out by the state legislature,” said Dohoney, an attorney who works for the state. “I think everybody, whether you’re for or against it … I think we’re all better served by going through the actual process.”
Dohoney said he is approached by South County residents all the time and the most common question he hears is why Berkshire Hills isn’t trying to merge with Southern Berkshire.
“I get as many inquiries from people who are residents of SBRSD about why we aren’t merging as I get from my own constituents,” Dohoney said.
An aerial view of the Mount Everett campus of the Southern Berkshire Regional School District.
Superintendent Peter Dillon questioned whether the July 31 deadline was realistic, given the reduced schedules of school committees and administrators during the summer months.
Dohoney said he’d be willing to extend it to Aug. 31 but school committee member Bill Fields of Great Barrington would have none of it.
“I just like July 31,” said Fields, a retired Berkshire Hills teacher. “We’ve been talking about this for so many years. What’s wrong with July 31? The sooner, the better for me.”
The rest of the school committee agreed with Fields and the motion passed with July 31 as the requested response date.
Almost two years ago, Dohoney made more news when he made a motion, which passed narrowly, for the school committee to withdraw from the Berkshire County Education Task Force. Two months earlier, the task force had recommended what one of its members called a “shocking proposal: “Berkshire County should consolidate its 19 school districts into one countywide district. At that time, Dohoney lashed out at the task force, calling it “a total wild goose chase” led by “some select group of random people.”
Last October, Fields went a step farther than Dohoney, calling for a nonbinding referendum on the matter of merging or consolidating with Southern Berkshire. Fields’ recommendation was made at a meeting of the Southern Berkshire Educational Futures, a group formed in 2017 to explore the future of South County’s public schools, whether it be in the form of mergers of shared services.
Dennis Sears of the Southern Berkshire Regional School Committee, at left, with Berkshire Hills Superintendent Peter Dillon.
Fields idea, supported by his friend and former Monument Mountain Regional High School athletic director Paul Gibbons, came as both men had become frustrated with the slow pace of progress in gaining public approval for taking some tangible action.
Berkshire Hills officials have repeatedly insisted that it did not appear that Southern Berkshire was interested but that eventually it would feel compelled to consider a merger because of projected enrollment declines.
According to a Berkshire Regional Planning Commission study, the Southern Berkshire Regional School District, which is the first and smallest K-12 regional school district in the state, had 1,072 students in the year 2000. The district is expected to see its current enrollment of approximately 645 students plummet to 483 by 2028.
Meanwhile, Berkshire Hills officials are engaged in the process of deciding what to do about the aging Monument Mountain Regional High School after a pair of $50-million-plus referendums to renovate it failed in 2013 and again a year later.
It is perhaps not surprising that Southern Berkshire taxpayers, who recently took on millions in debt to fix Mount Everett’s roof and boilers, feel justified in being apprehensive about merging with a school district that is itself pondering a much larger and more costly project.
The Edge reached out to Jane Burke, the newly appointed chair of the Southern Berkshire Regional School Committee. She said the Berkshire Hills move came as a “surprise” to her but she declined to comment further until her committee has a chance to discuss it.
Longtime Southern Berkshire School Committee members H. Dennis Sears and Bonnie Silvers did respond. Both emphasized that they were speaking for themselves and not for the committee.
SBRSD School Committee member Bonnie Silvers.
Silvers noted that the aforementioned Southern Berkshire Education Futures meets today, June 11, and that perhaps that would be a good place to discuss the subject further. Click here to see the agenda for the meeting that will take place at 4 p.m. at the Lee Middle and High School library.
“I may not necessarily agree with Rich Dohoney’s timing of his motion, given tomorrow’s meeting, but I, speaking only as citizen of Sheffield and one school committee member say, ‘Go for it,'” Silvers told the Edge. “It’s your right.”
Silvers, a retired school administrator, said she has sat in on classes at Mount Everett, which she described as being in “fine physical condition,” and has seen firsthand students and teachers engaged in “real problem-solving activities and multi-disciplinary education” that prepares students for the future.
Still, higher enrollment would be a plus. Silvers said that about four years ago Mount Everett Principal Glenn Devoti, who will be retiring shortly, told her the school would improve even more with three to five more students in each class — mostly because the excitement of a strong education comes from the robust exchange of ideas and knowledge in the classroom.
Silvers added that a merger would be a challenge — both politically and because of the debt Southern Berkshire took on in 2015 for the $7.7 million boiler and roof project, which was paid for with local dollars and $2.6 million from the Massachusetts School Building Authority. The project took a great deal of time, planning and effort on the part of the school committee, staff, volunteers and the towns themselves, Silvers said, and it added to the financial burden of taxpayers.
“I hope that any discussions between BH and SBRSD will not be solely about a building but will be about our jobs inside the building,” Silvers said.
The entrance to the Southern Berkshire Regional school campus at Mount Everett Regional High School. Photo: David Scribner
Sears, who also sits on Southern Berkshire Educational Futures, told the Edge he has no objection to Dohoney’s idea of forming a panel to explore a merger, in part because “I think it would be a good idea to switch to this more structured approach.” Still, Sears is curious as to “why this is suddenly proposed after being proposed at least three times within the SBEF group.”
“I am also concerned about the idea of a concept that deals only with high school years 9-12,” Sears said. “I think most educators these days recognize that the middle schools need to be an in-synch pipeline for the high schools and I personally think such a look should include both middle and high school for curriculum purposes and highest success rates.”
In a brief email message to the Edge on Monday, Dohoney responded to Sears’ concern: “A vast majority of the inquires I get from constituents about consolidation relate to the high school and the impact of declining enrollment on the quality of education is greater at the high school level.”
Meanwhile, Berkshire Hills Superintendent Peter Dillon said he would draft a letter reflecting Dohoney’s motion this week.
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I have one clarification. My comments were not in response to Dennis Sears. I was responding to an email from Terry Cowgill. I was not even aware Dennis had commented and if I wanted to respond to Dennis I would have called him directly. Dennis has always been open and forthright with his views on the relationship between the two districts and I have far to much respect for him to communicate with him through the media.
Fair point Rich. They were Dennis’ concerns conveyed through me, so that’s why I worded it as a did.
My biggest concern over the Berkshire Hills and Southern Berkshire merger is the increased school costs and taxes. I’m not so sure that those of us with students in Mount Everett want to be saddled with Berkshire Hill’s debts, which seems to be a primary drive behind the merger in my opinion. Also, larger governance and more administrative staff tend to cause more problems than they resolve. Will the smaller rural towns still have a voice in a larger district or will their opinions and input be extinguished by the more populated towns?
I am sure any merger agreement could be structured so that Southern Berkshire is specifically not saddled with Berkshire Hills’ existing debts.
An afterthought, the likely reason for the reducing enrollment in SBRSD is due to the fact that multi generational families in south county are also reducing population, being replaced by second homeowners who either do not have children or who opt to enroll their kids in private schools. As our younger generations leave the area to find jobs that can sustain them other than low paying retail and tourism related positions it should be no surprise that our school district enrollment is declining. Young people that try to start families here are priced out of our area thanks to the over-focus on tourist dollars; politicians need to think more about their multi-generational constituents than the thickness of their own wallets.
Personally, I would never ask that the residents of South Berkshire be asked to take on additional debt with respect to fixing Monument. I am sure we could work out a financial plan to the satisfaction of all.
I am in favor of a new building to house grades 9-12. That being said I am not opposed to enlarging a renovated high school. Both school systems need a certain critical mass of students to offer the most beneficial education to all.
It just makes more sense to move forward on this request now. I don’t expect that our enrollments are going to have a sudden increase to previous numbers.