“We are not doing justice by our current students. We're being irresponsible by sitting here today and saying we're not improving our high school for four years."
--- Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee member Rich Dohoney
School districts across the Commonwealth will benefit from updates to the existing Chapter 70 funding formula, along with increased state investment in other vital education aid programs such as transportation, school construction and renovation and special education.
School committee members noted that the driving force behind the merger should be greater opportunity for students and a desire "to keep education strong" in the two districts amid declining enrollments.
At last Thursday’s school committee meeting, Rich Dohoney of Great Barrington proposed that Berkshire Hills issue a written request to its member towns, along with the Southern Berkshire Regional School District and its own member towns, to form a planning board "for the purpose of either forming, or consolidating into, a regional high school district to serve grades 9-12."
Led by senior Lucy Doren, about 20 Monument students created a survey to distribute to fellow students, broke up into small groups and began imagining a design crafted around a core schedule, natural lighting, an enclosed courtyard, break-out spaces and more space for the school's growing career and vocational technical education program.
"From where I'm standing, it's clear that we don't have enough information. One of the worries everyone has is the community is going to be split on this." --Monument Next Steps member Joshua Shapiro
The devil, however, was in the details, as panelists debated the pros and cons of building a brand-new new school or stripping the old one down to its core, constructing an addition and adding sprinkler systems and new infrastructure.
If the Berkshire Hills Regional School District could increase the number of towns that are formally members of the district, it could be leveraged to have a significant effect on the reimbursement rate for a potential project from the Massachusetts School Building Authority.
A common complaint among employees of the district and their families was that district officials did not adequately consult with faculty and staff about what was needed in terms of design and the accommodation of innovative curriculum, for example.
The largest incentive (up to 6 additional percentage points) to increase state reimbursement lies in the formation of a new school district as part of the building project. That incentive might resonate with South County residents because of declining enrollments.
This will be the third try since 2013 to get state aid for the ailing high school. BHRSD Superintendent Peter Dillon noted that “constructing a new high school is actually less expensive than renovating and adding to the new building.”
Douglas Wine comes to Monument with 28 years of teaching and administrative experience and is currently principal at Bishop Dunne Catholic School in Dallas, Texas.
Berkshire Hills’ director of operations Steven Soule will once again assess the condition of 50-year-old Monument Mountain Regional High School and draft the statement, which will explain a number of deficiencies including 'building condition, access, health and safety, as well as deficiencies for instructional programs, especially science and career and technical facilities.'
Monument Next Steps includes 22 members and will be modeled after the Regional Agreement Amendment Committee, which met several times over the course of the last year in a successful effort to change the district agreement's formula for taxing the district's member towns to pay for its operations and capital expenses.
