With town assessments potentially rising by as much as 18 percent, residents and officials pushed back on Superintendent Brian Ricca's proposed fiscal 2027 budget options and criticized him for presenting it without line items.
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.
Berkshire Hills voted unanimously to appoint two subcommittees. The first will focus on the nuts and bolts of a potential consolidation. On the recommendation of the Southern Berkshire school committee, a second subcommittee would focus on the educational aspect of the potential consolidation.
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."
Berkshire Hills School Committee member Rich Dohoney said he is approached by South County residents all the time and the most common question he hears is why Berkshire Hills isn't trying to merge with Southern Berkshire.
"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.
Ironically, it actually cost a lot of money to keep the overall increases down. In order to limit the operating budget increase to 4.21 percent, the school committee had to spend $840,000 from a reserve fund known as excess and deficiency.
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.
Any new initiatives will build on the school’s strong pre-existing relationships with businesses and nonprofits, fostered in part through its longstanding internship program, which sends dozens of students into the community each year for a portion of the school day.
In an incident that garnered much publicity, the Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee in 2004 declined to name after Du Bois one of the two new regional schools it had just built.
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.
Brian rode his bike to work, loved swimming, and sailing. He was an avid reader, writer, and dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker. He strived to challenge himself and those around him.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced last week that e-cigarette use has increased almost 80 percent among high schoolers and 50 percent among middle schoolers since last year.
The selectboard announced that, about a year ago, it had commissioned a report by David Prickett of DPC Engineering to gather information on the water systems in the town, what the capital needs are and whether there are redundancies.
