Berkshire County — Members of the Southern Berkshire Regional School District Committee are threatening to quit the Eight Town Regional School District Planning Board which has been researching the potential merger of Berkshire Hills and Southern Berkshire Regional School districts.
The undated letter was co-signed by 10 members of the Southern Berkshire Regional School District and was sent to the Planning Board. A copy of the letter was forwarded to The Berkshire Edge on Wednesday, September 27 by marketing and communications specialist Cas Londergan, who sent it on behalf of district Superintendent Beth Regulbuto.
“It is our firm belief, at this time, that this process is being rushed and that until we address the difficult dynamic between the two districts and the ongoing feeling of imbalance, there simply is no path forward,” the 10 school district members state in the letter. “To further explain: despite the fact that we have clearly demonstrated our commitment to the work of the RSDPB through our active presence at over 120 meetings across 2.5-plus years; clearly demonstrating our desire to see a successful outcome to our work, there have been outspoken rebukes of the SBRSD School Committee, district leadership team and our staff. We believe that this is in no way a warranted response.”
The district members state in the letter that there are many unanswered questions regarding the potential merger. “Too many of our questions related to the assumptions regarding the financial savings realized by a merger have not been answered and the premises upon which the savings have been explained (i.e., larger class size, redundancies eliminated, staff retirements, etc.) do not in many cases make sense to us,” the school district members state in their letter. “Responses have not been forthcoming regarding our district’s main campus in Sheffield. We do not believe that the transportation studies are responding to several concerns. These issues have been raised multiple times and not yet fully discussed.”
The district members went on to criticize the environment at Planning Board meetings. “Unfortunately for us, the negative dynamic at full RSDPB meetings and many subcommittee meetings is becoming an emotional energy drain,” the school district members state. “Our members show up, engage, make suggestions, do research to support the RSDPB’s efforts, volunteer for additional work, put forth our best efforts and try to bring positive energy in order to collaborate. The environment in which we are working is not truly conducive to our feeling productive. If anything, we are left in a constant state of defensiveness and charged with not cooperating because we are not 100 percent behind pouring all of our energy into being ‘absorbed’ and, yes, that is the prevailing sense, and working to create a new Monument Mountain.”
The district members proceed to warn that they are considering “withdrawing from this process unless we can take a pause, stop being driven (in our view) by the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s deadlines, work to resolve this strong sense of imbalance between our two districts and create a timeline that truly allows us to examine variations on the proposed model as was promised when the research team put forward their extensive report in March.”
“After all of this time, money spent, energy invested, it has become too difficult to continue in this environment and feel productive,” the school district members wrote in the letter. “We strongly believe that we can all figure this out if we take a step back for a moment. We may bleed blue and gold; but first we believe in providing our five communities the best education possible for their children while acknowledging fiscal restraints.”
The letter is cosigned by Southern Berkshire Regional School District Committee Chairman Jane Burke of New Marlborough and Vice-Chair Art Batacchi of Sheffield, as well as by members Jeffrey Blaugrund of Alford; James DiPisa and Danile Jordan-Kelly of Egremont; Laura Rodriguez of Monterey; H. Dennis Sears, E. Bonnie Silvers, and Kara Smith of Sheffield; and Nanci Worthington of New Marlborough.
