Time now for a postmortem on the eight towns’ consideration of “Our Schools – Better Together” and Great Barrington’s Special Town Meeting. It is fair to say that Berkshire Hills Regional School District (BHRSD) got down on one knee expecting Southern Berkshire Regional School District (SBRSD) to say “you had me at hello,” but, instead, they got an emphatic, conscious non-coupling rejection. Monday evening brought us an electoral shellacking with some bright spots—you can call it the good, the bad, and the ugly, but overall it was misbegotten.
There is no point in rehashing all the benefits of the merger. Suffice it to say (as one proponent did), merging the districts in the face of declining enrollment, rising costs, and a plan to broaden educational opportunities for our students was “a no brainer.” Other than Alford, SBRSD failed to meet expectations. By the end of the night, the score was Parochialism: 1; “No Brainer”: 0. No MVPs awarded here.
Perhaps it was always a bridge (bus ride?) too far to expect folks in SBRSD to swap their rural educational enclaves for enlightened horizons. There is rural, and then there are the tiny towns of SBRSD. Maybe it was too much to expect that very rural voters would consider a graduating high school class in excess of 20 students a good idea. It is fine to be close-minded, as long as you don’t imperil the educational opportunities for future generations. These election results were decidedly not fine.
BHRSD will dust itself off and move forward with Plan B, which is not without its own challenges. A smaller replacement high school can become a reality if two-thirds of Great Barrington voters can, for one minute, accept a potential $50 million gift from the state and approve a bond issuance. Ordinarily, I would say that we should never underestimate some portion of Great Barrington’s electorate to reject sensible expenditures, but I was heartened by the town’s overwhelming support for the Article 2 Community Preservation Act expenditures. There was but one lone voice raging against expenditures of any kind or nature at any time. That is an improvement over town meetings past. Maybe we have reason to believe replacing decrepit Monument Mountain’s facilities with a gleaming new building is possible.
Great Barrington’s passage of Article 2 and overwhelming defeat of Article 3 (the citizen petition seeking to prevent installation of the W.E.B. Du Bois Sculpture Project at the Mason Public Library) was definitely Monday night’s good. I was overjoyed to witness the resounding support for the W.E.B. Du Bois statue. There is no evidence that Article 3 was a manifestation of some disguised New England racism rather than a concern about altering purportedly sacred lawn in front of the library, but some hinted racism was at its core. So the highlight of the night was the full-throated support for W.E.B. Du Bois meant to drown out support for Article 3. In that moment, I was never prouder to be a Great Barrington-ite.
After each recent national election I have noted the press going through a cycle of “How did we get these results so wrong?” I wondered the same of myself on Monday as the votes from the various towns were reported. Driving around South County lately, it was hard to miss the proliferation of “no merger” signs and the absence of any “yes merger” signs. That should have been my first clue, but I rejected the thought that a majority would not vote for what is best. Prognostication is plainly not my strong suit. I now know in the future to count signs rather than reject out of hand the thought that voters would act against their own self-interest.
Teachers can open doors for you, but you need to walk through yourself. The lesson here is that SBRSD is not interested in advancement. ‘Nuff said. BHRSD can close the book on expansion and work toward non-merger greener pastures. Monday night’s silver lining is that no one is left to wonder what SBRSD really thinks. They may be parochial, but at least they spoke with one voice.
