Berkshire County — The earliest a new school district merged from Berkshire Hills and Southern Berkshire Regional School Districts could operate is in July 2025. This is according to Project Manager Jake Eberwein who gave a presentation on the potential merger timeline at the Eight Town Regional School District Planning Board meeting on Wednesday, January 4. At the meeting, Eberwein said that the merger process would take at least two fiscal years.
As stated at previous meetings, for the merger to be approved, votes would be held at individual town meetings, and the majority of residents at each town meeting would have to approve the merger agreement for the merged district to go forward. If the school district merger was approved by residents, it still would have to be approved by State Commissioner of Education Jeffrey C. Riley.
Eberwein said that right after the commissioner approved the merged school district, a new interim regional school committee made up of appointed members of the eight towns in the district would be created, possibly at some point this summer.
At the January 4 meeting, board members agreed to a motion that the makeup of the appointed committee would be the same as the configuration previously agreed to at the December 14 meeting: 11 members, which would include three members from Great Barrington; two from Sheffield; and one committee member each from Alford, Monterey, New Marlborough, Egremont, West Stockbridge, and Stockbridge. Eberwein said that the interim committee would be operating alongside the separate Berkshire Hills and Southern Berkshire Regional School District committees.
About a year after the interim merged school committee takes shape, Eberwein said that elections would be held for permanent members of the committee, possibly at the November 2024 town elections. Eberwein said that when the merged school district becomes fully operational, the Berkshire Hills and Southern Berkshire Regional School District committees would be shut down.
In response to the presentation, board members issued their concerns about the potential hiring of a superintendent for the merged school district. “My opinion—and people may agree or disagree—is that you would search for a superintendent with your [merged school district] elected committee in November 2024,” Eberwein said. “I believe that the timing could line up pretty nicely because that’s kind of hunting season [for school superintendents]. In terms of recruiting superintendents, it’s typically between November and January when the school committees are posting and interviewing candidates.”
Eberwein said that, in the meantime, the appointed committee would be able to work with the Massachusetts Association of School Committees to get documents and information together for the potential hiring of a new superintendent. “The elected committee would have the authority to run a search committee, run a search process, do the interviews, and ultimately make the appointment,” Eberwein said. “That appointment could occur with the new superintendent starting on July 1 [2025] or before, if he or she were available earlier.”
Committee member Donald Coburn said that, while he agrees that the appointment of a superintendent should be made by an elected committee, the current draft of the merger agreement did not draw any distinction between the powers of the appointed and the elected committee. “I agree thoroughly with Jake that the appointment of the superintendent and his staff should be done by the elected committee, so the superintendent knows who he’s going to be working for,” Coburn said. “But it seems to me that a lot of the other powers are also ones that should not be given to the appointed committee for a final decision, including the power to establish and adopt policies for the new district. The elected folks are the people who are going to be running the district, and it seems to me that they should have the final say on that.” Coburn suggested that the members of the appointed committee should be limited to only making recommendations and conducting preliminary work for the newly merged school district. Coburn later made a motion to add his suggestion to the draft agreement.
However, board member Nadine Hawver questioned the timing of the hiring of a merged school district superintendent and whether or not an elected committee would be in place when a superintendent would have to be hired. “Between the summer of 2023 and the fall of 2024 the interim committee is doing its work,” Hawver said. “That will probably entail the hiring of a new superintendent. That new superintendent is going to want to be ready to be hired for July 2024 before the elected school committee has been elected.” Hawver said that waiting for the merged school district to have an elected committee would be too late to have a superintendent in place by July 2025.
Eventually, Coburn withdrew his motion because he wanted to think more about what Hawver said when it came to the timing of hiring a new superintendent.
At the meeting, Eberwein added that the board has a long list of tasks to consider and work on, including determining administrative organization, strategic planning, and budget development.
One of the tasks, the working name of the newly merged school district, was listed as a discussion item on the agenda of the January 4 meeting. However, the meeting ended without a discussion on the working name.
