Berkshire County — After a long debate that lasted well over an hour at its meeting on Wednesday, December 14, the Eight Town School District Planning Board agreed to a school committee configuration for a merged Berkshire Hills and Southern Berkshire Regional School district.
The Planning Board still has a way to go in its work for developing a merger agreement, and any agreement would still have to be approved by residents in the eight towns served by both school districts.
The board approved a merged district school committee consisting of 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. The option was chosen from several options that were developed during several meetings.
The two other options considered by the Planning Board included an option that would have 13 members on the board, which would be similar in composition as the chosen option but with two “at large” members who would have no residency requirements and a third option that would have a 10 member board which would include one member from each town and two “at large” members.
During the December 14 meeting, Board Chair Lucy Prashker held a ranked vote to poll which of the three options would be preferred by board members, followed by their second and third choices. “I think the ‘at large’ has some merits, but I think if we’re trying to explain this to the voters and get this passed, I think ‘at large’ is very confusing to people,” Great Barrington member Stephen Bannon said. “None of these options have a large difference [when it comes to membership numbers]. But I am worried that the ‘at large’ is just going to be another problem for us to explain. People may be against it, and that may hurt us at the polling place.”
Board members cited that the 11-member option is similar to the membership that is currently in place for both school district boards. “I think that choosing something [that] is too different from what we have now is going to be more difficult for people to digest when they’re deciding this,” Sheffield member Colin Smith said. “This is going to be a huge decision for everybody. In some of the conversations we have had with our Select Board in Sheffield, I’m already feeling like some of them are having a hard time grasping it.”
However, New Marlborough member Susan Smith issued her concerns on the potential power Great Barrington members might have on committee business. “One of the issues that I have is that, with three members from Great Barrington and the way that the school committee is set up, a two-thirds [vote] could kill a budget,” Smith said. “The way [the first proposal] is structured is that Great Barrington could tip the scales on any potential issue. On the flip side, I know this is incredibly political and I know that Great Barrington has the biggest pocketbook and the biggest number of students and should have a larger voice.”
“The fact of the matter is that Sheffield and Great Barrington are going to pay for the majority of the district,” Stockbridge board member Patrick White said. “I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable for them to get a majority of the say in how the district has run.”
“This situation could potentially happen in the Southern Berkshire District with Sheffield and New Marlborough,” Sheffield board member Nadine Hawver said. “It has never happened to my knowledge. I think we’re making an issue of something that’s not really an issue. I think it’s unlikely that two towns will get together at a school committee meeting and vote down a budget presented by the superintendent.”
Later on in the meeting, Bannon, who is also the chairman of the Regional Hills School Committee, said that he did not recall a time when committee members from Great Barrington joined together to block the school district’s budget. “Great Barrington has five out of the 10 votes on the committee,” Bannon said. “Stockbridge has three votes, and West Stockbridge has two. In my whole [25 years] on the committee, there has never been an effort [by Great Barrington] to block the budget or anything else. I don’t even see that as a legitimate problem.”
Eventually, Monterey member Jonathan Sylbert made a motion to include a proposal that would have eight members, with one from each member town, and three “at large” members. “It does change the two-thirds supermajority required if you have 11 versus 10,” Sylbert said. “The larger towns would have an advantage in seating additional members because they have more votes. In other words, if they put up a candidate for the ‘at large’ position that’s from Great Barrington, they have that advantage.”
After an extensive debate, the board approved Sylbert’s motion.
Prashker eventually went through a ranked vote with each member of the board, with the 11-member option with three Great Barrington members, two Sheffield members, and one from each remaining town as the top choice. “Let’s just be done and move on,” West Stockbridge member Andy Potter said after the ranked vote.
Towards the end of the meeting, just as Prashker was about to get to the public comments portion of the meeting, Monterey committee member Donald Coburn made a motion that “the majority vote prevails on this issue,” and that the board put into place the committee membership option that was chosen by ranked choice. Coburn’s motion was seconded by Great Barrington member Deb Phillips and was approved by the board.
By the time the meeting ended after over two hours, the committee did not get to several items on the agenda, including a discussion on a transition period and transition committee, the working name of a potential new merged school district, and a discussion on decisions requiring a supermajority.
