Great Barrington — In a sign that Berkshire County school districts are beginning to take action to deal with a financially unsustainable regional model due to population and economic shifts, Lee Public Schools said they want to consider sharing a superintendent, and Berkshire Hills Regional School District is jumping at the chance.
The move would share Berkshire Hills Superintendent Peter Dillon with Lee Schools, and opens the door for more collaboration between the two districts — and possibly consolidation — in the very near future.
The vote by the Berkshire Hills committee to share Dillon with Lee was unanimous. The committee had voted in July to open talks with Lee about collaborating in some way after Lee broadcast its interest in joining forces with surrounding districts.
Lee had previously had extensive discussions with Lenox that proved unfruitful.
Dillon announced at Thursday’s (September 3) School Committee meeting that Lee’s school committee and the Lee Tyringham Superintendency Union will soon be looking for a new superintendent since interim superintendent Alfred Skrocki was installed in 2013 to replace Jason “Jake” McCandless, who took a job running the Pittsfield Schools.
The Lee Tyringham Union, Dillon said, voted to place an advertisement for a shared superintendent.
Dillon said this development is an “extension” of the Southern Berkshire Shared Services [Project], in which all six districts in the area are talking about how to collaborate in various ways.
Berkshire Hills School Committee Chairman Steve Bannon said Berkshire Hills should make a move, and that in future, many surrounding districts will be looking to share. “I would like to at least throw our hat into the ring and see where we go with sharing a super.”
“We should support this,” said committee member Dan Weston, noting that Lee was a good fit because of the town’s “strong sense of community…something that a lot of places don’t have anymore.”
Dillon said that he and the committee will send Lee his resume and a “proposed package of services.”
Dillon added that this opens the door to deeper opportunities that “off the top of my head” could include “technology, facilities, business and business administration…the director of teaching and learning.”
It could all be the breeding ground for true consolidation. “The next sort of thing could potentially be joining districts,” Dillon said.
Berkshire County school districts have struggled to their contain budgets while costs streak forever upward amid state funding shortages, population and economic shifts in a rural region, and student enrollment declines that mean less money from the state.
A recent Berkshire Regional Planning Commission report on enrollment was sobering, showing an 11 percent decline over the next 10 years.
The problem was explored at a June Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) meeting held at Lee Middle and High School, in which legislators warned districts that the state may step in and force consolidations if districts don’t take action. Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli, who spearheaded the Shared Services Project, is strident. “You don’t want the state driving the bus,” he told The Edge.
The problems have also spawned a task force that meets regularly on weekends to gather information that will forge solutions. These are problems that have trickled out to cause others, such as teacher lay offs.
And projections of declining student enrollment, for instance, in part caused Great Barrington voters to twice over reject a renovation plan for 50-year-old Monument Mountain Regional High School, which is in serious need of repair and upgrade.
But all the hand wringing is turning to action.
“I like the fact that we’re actually going to put something down on paper,” said committee member Richard Dohoney, who is eager to see more detail about the structure, and called Lee’s approach a “paradigm shift.”
“I really view this is as a tremendous opportunity…Lee is a great, best option for us for any level of collaboration or consolidation…Lee is out front, putting it in the paper, discussing it and asking for a public process, and that’s how something’s going to get done.”
Committee member Fred Clark wondered what other staff could be shared.
“I think we have a really good relationship with Lee,” Bannon said. “We’re not discounting anything that we can share with any of our neighbors. Peter’s been on the forefront saying, ‘here’s all these possibilities, think about it.’ ”
Dillon said it should be done soon, since the best time to hire a superintendent is at the beginning of the new year, especially since there is currently a statewide superintendent shortage.
Lee School Committee member Nelson Daley Sr., told The Edge he hopes the districts can share a superintendent and lots more, particularly with vocational education.
“When I graduated from Lee High we had four or five paper mills in town, and lots of kids didn’t go to college,” he said. Daley, owner of Daley & Son’s Trucking, and whose father worked in one of those mills, said that back then “people made good money, got insurance, worked lots of overtime. You could get a job easily. Today, it’s tough.”
He noted that the Lee High graduated just over 50 students last year, a result of a dwindling population. He also said a regional vocational school was badly needed, and said that the district, for instance, was paying nearly $40,000 per year to send one Lee student to Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School in Hatfield.
“So I see what’s going on with the economy here — except for tourists, there’s not much in Berkshire County. My grandkids graduated from college and they’re gone.”
Daley said he thought consolidation between the two districts was a great idea. “Look at what it costs to have schools and build new schools. Hopefully we can share more.”
The Berkshire Hills committee is clearly eager and relieved for the chance to do it.
Richard Dohoney, who has been vocal about it over the last year, said as much.
“We’re lucky here where our administration is running into the fire to try to do the best for the district,” he said last night.
