Berkshire County — Creating a merger agreement for the Berkshire Hills and Southern Berkshire Regional School districts is taking much longer than expected, according to Eight Town Regional School District Planning Board Chair Lucy Prashker. Prashker spoke to the board during its regular meeting on Wednesday, January 18.
She said that the original target was for the board to vote on the merger agreement by either the end of February or the beginning of March. “We may need to be well into March and maybe even April before we even get there [to vote on the agreement],” Prashker said. “If that’s the case, then we probably will not be able to get this on the town meeting warrants for May 1.” For the school district merger to go into effect, the agreement needs to be approved by residents at town meetings in all eight town member districts.
Prashker said that “there is a fair amount of work to do” by the Planning Board’s Finance Subcommittee to determine its recommendations on assessment methodologies, operating assessments, and “capital costs for everything else.” Prashker said, “I think it’s time to talk about a ‘Plan B.’ A ‘Plan B’ would be to have a vote a little later than originally targeted and ask for special town meetings in each of the eight towns either in August or September.”
“We should continue to work really hard because that date will creep up on us,” Project Manager Jake Eberwein said. “I think it’s really important that we move toward the decision point. I would say that I would be concerned that anyone would view this as an opportunity to let up on the gas at all. I think we need to continue to push hard with the Finance Committee and with the work that has been done on the original [draft] agreement. You are all making progress, even when it takes a lot of discussions to get there.”
“I don’t think [a vote on the district merger] is an appropriate topic for a regular town meeting,” Great Barrington Board member Stephen Bannon said. “I think regular town meetings can drag on for two to three hours, and this topic would be appropriate for a special town meeting. The other thing is that we need to rethink August [special town meetings]. We try not to do things in the summer because there are too many people who are away and don’t get to vote.”
In response, Prashker said “there’s nothing magical about August,” and special town meetings could be held up to October to vote on the district agreement.
“I just want to point out that special town meetings typically have half or lower the attendance of a regular town meeting,” Stockbridge Board member Patrick White said. “The trade-off is participation and, frankly, the ability for folks who have a strong opinion one way or another.”
Earlier in the meeting, for almost an hour, the committee discussed a formal name for the merged school district. However, board members could not agree. As presented by Prashker, the name currently on the draft agreement for the merged district is the “Southern Berkshire Hills Regional School District.”
“We can either adopt that name, adopt a different name, or we could adopt this name as the working name and then write it into the district agreement that the new [merged] school committee would determine a new name,” Prashker said.
“Has any thought been given to the idea of allowing the citizens of the eight towns to determine the name?” Alford Board member Carl Stewart asked.
“While my third plan [to allow the merged school committee to determine the name] would sort of allow for community input,” Prashker said. “I don’t think we want to have a ballot wide initiative on choosing a new name.”
A motion was made by Monterey board member Jonathan Sylbert to adopt the Southern Berkshire Hills Regional School District name, which was seconded by Stewart.
Members of the board proceeded to discuss whether or not the name would be appropriate for the school district. “We’ve talked a lot about regional identity and becoming an eight-town regional affiliation,” Great Barrington member Peter Taylor said. “It is my experience living and working here that oftentimes South County is used as a way to refer to the eight towns that are potentially familiar to people. Should we go with what’s familiar to identify the region that we’re trying to bind together for the sake of high-quality education for all our kids?”
Taylor suggested the name “South County Regional School District.” However, White said, “six words that are multi-syllables makes it hard for a lot of people to swallow, and it’s a lot to say and a really tough acronym.” He offered, “I think we should we should simplify it to South Berkshire School District. Get rid of regional. Get rid of hills. Just do a simple right off-the-tongue ‘SBSD.’”
As the meeting progressed, the members of the board continued to discuss whether or not the name should be “Southern Berkshire Hills Regional School District,” and if the name should be permanent, temporary, if the name should be decided upon by the merged school district board, or if the name should be decided by the members of the public.
Eventually, the board voted against Sylbert’s motion by a vote of 10 to 9. “I love the name ‘Southern Berkshire Hills Regional School District,’ but I just would like to give the community an opportunity for input, if it’s possible under the law,” Prashker said. “My no vote is not against that name.”
Taylor then made a motion to have “Southern Berkshire Hills Regional School District” as the working name with a provision “that the appointed transition committee should, with community input, revisit that name subject to board counsel’s approval.”
The motion was seconded by Sylbert but was questioned by Stewart. “There’s no definition in the motion, or at least [none that] I heard of, what community input means,” Stewart said. “That could mean almost anything. I think there should be community input. But I think we have a certain lack of clarity about a number of things, and one of them is, what does community input mean? Does it mean a vote? Does it mean a forum at which people who are interested enough show up and say what they think? I don’t know if we’re giving [the merged school committee] sufficient guidance as to what community input means.”
Eventually, after all was said and done, Taylor withdrew the motion and the board voted to table the discussion and refer a further discussion on the matter to the Board’s Community Outreach Subcommittee before bringing the issue back to the Planning Board.
“I hope that no members of the community watch this latest section of our meeting,” Stewart said towards the end of the discussion.
“I would like to defend the performance of this board on all issues, including the important issue of naming the new regional school district,” Prashker said. “I don’t think we should be beating ourselves up over the interest people have shown in getting community input on the naming of the new district. I really don’t think that’s appropriate. We take enough hits. We don’t need to take a hit over the healthy and respectful debate over the naming of the new regional school district.”
Click here for the current draft of the school districts regional agreement in PDF format.
