Sheffield
As a graduate of the Southern Berkshire Regional School District (SBRSD) and a current director for Mount Everett’s production in the Fall Festival of Shakespeare, I am very much against the school merger.
The SBRSD community that I knew as a student, and that I see now as a community member, is a unique, creative, and challenging environment for students. The teachers and staff are dedicated to expanding the opportunities available to our small and thriving student body. We do not want to throw this away.
Our world today is big, bigger than when I was in school. It is also lonely. It is too easy to become a cog in the wheel, a “follower” scrolling through social media. The U.S. Surgeon General released a report this year warning of an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. The report notes that “the harmful consequences of a society that lacks social connection can be felt in our schools, workplaces, and civic organizations, where performance, productivity, and engagement are diminished.”
A high school is a community center. It is a place that people across generations gather together and learn and support one another. In an age when children can easily fall through the cracks into anonymity, why would we want to close down a close-knit center of community and bus our children away from what they have been building together? Furthermore, Sheffield is a small town, what would happen to the life of the town, the businesses, and the library if we were to lose this magnet of life?
Our small class sizes turn our students into creative leaders and encourage critical thinking. Small, seminar-style classes like my classmates and I experienced with teachers like Mr. Wolgemuth are what some parents pay tens of thousands of dollars for at private institutions. According to British evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar, 150 people is the “point beyond which members of any social group lose their ability to function effectively in social relationships.” To go bigger is to lose the human connection that keeps all students visible.
Having child care and pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in the same building makes our community strong. Our teachers and staff see us grow and know our struggles and strengths. They know our families. We stay in contact with each other even as we move into high school and into different academic levels. The AP students are still walking the halls with the students with special needs whom they have known since kindergarten. These are the “small” things that make us beautiful.
We need to look further ahead into the future. The proponents of the merger hang their hats on the statistics that say that we are losing population. While I do not dispute the current numbers, this pessimistic premise rings untrue to me. I am a young, recently married person, and many of my peers are settling in the Berkshires and having babies. Even more importantly, with the reality of our climate emergency, there is no doubt that the Berkshires will become a destination for those fleeing less secure environments. We should not discard one of our most valuable community assets now.
To quote E.F. Schumacher, “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.” Our school may be small, but it is beautiful. It has been well taken care of over the years. We have students who can walk and bike to school. We have students participating—and shining—in extracurriculars who in a bigger school environment may not have the opportunity to do so. We need our school, we do not need a merger. Please vote “no.”
