By By Jane Kaufman,The Berkshire Eagle

Copyright berkshireeagle

Facing declining enrollment and rising costs, two more school districts voted to join a northern Berkshire exploratory group on sharing resources or possibly reorganizing — despite one member’s warning about a potential “super district.”

Mount Greylock Regional School District and North Berkshire School Union both voted to join the other districts that have already expressed support to move forward with the study that would present options for a “potential reorganization.” North Adams Public Schools and Hoosac Valley Regional School District have already agreed to send representatives to the exploratory working group.

Rebecca Phillips, superintendent and special education director for both Hancock Central School and New Ashford, said she has not yet discussed joining the exploratory group with her school committees, but will draw the matter to their attention when both next meet in early October.

“I don’t really know where either committee would stand,” Phillips said.

Her uncertainty reflects a wider conversation among the area’s school districts serving Adams, Cheshire, Clarksburg, Florida, Monroe, North Adams, Rowe and Savoy students. Superintendents say they’re concerned about what declining enrollment will mean for robust programming in the future, and the districts have already tried collaborating on special education, but that did not last.

But school officials looking to the future say something — at the very least joining together to discuss options — has to be done.

NORTH BERKSHIRE SCHOOL UNION

In a vote of 8-0 on Monday, the North Berkshire School Union school committee — which serves students in Clarksburg, Florida, Monroe, Rowe and Savoy — approved the same language that North Adams Public Schools and Hoosac Valley Regional school committees agreed on for the exploratory group.

The motion lets the chair name two people to a working group that will hire a consultant to collect data and outline options for possibly reorganizing North Adams, Hoosac Valley and the North Berkshire School Union, with a focus on strengthening secondary-level programs and services.

Even though the motion passed, John Franzoni, North Berkshire School Union superintendent, said one person on the school committee objected to regionalization.

Franzoni said he told the committee members that the world of education is changing and they need to look to the future to best serve their students.

“We need to look at what’s best moving forward, not what’s worked in the in the past,” he said. “We have to learn from the past, but don’t get stuck in it.”

In addition to joining this exploratory group, Franzoni said that Rowe Elementary School is considering joining a combined Mohawk Trail Regional School District and Hawlemont Regional School District in Franklin County. He’s uncertain about what Monroe will decide to do.

Similar to towns in Berkshire County, those two districts have engaged Berk12 to study regionalization and are considering combining all grades at Mohawk Trail’s Buckland campus.

MOUNT GREYLOCK REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

On Sept. 11, Mount Greylock Regional School District School Committee ultimately passed a motion to join the exploratory group, but not without some back and forth among members.

The vote was 5-1 with committee member Steven Miller casting the lone no vote. Ursula Maloy was absent.

The motion, tweaked by Superintendent Joe Bergeron, added the words, “a potential collaboration and/or reorganization” rather than just “a potential reorganization.”

Bergeron told the school committee he had checked with other superintendents regarding this language and that it would have no impact on Mount Greylock’s ability to participate in the exploratory group.

Still, mention of reorganization drew objections from Miller, who wondered whether this might lead to a proposal for a “super district,” such as Berk12 proposed in 2017 for all of Berkshire County.

“I’ve been advocating for years that we have trouble with small numbers, and it’d be great to find ways to efficiently share resources,” Miller said. “The only concern I have is what is meant by the word reorganization. … I just want to be clear that this is not the first step on a path to trying to form a large district where we are folded in.”

“The wording is open-ended,” Bergeron responded in part. “There is no commitment here.”

Member Carrie Greene pointed out that other districts are facing challenges similar to those of Mount Greylock in terms of decreasing population, difficulty hiring teachers, and the rising costs of health care benefits.

“We can’t begin this process from a place of fear,” she said. “This is an opportunity to join a conversation, and it’s nothing more than that right now. … I just would encourage our school committee to be open minded about the conversation and not put restrictions on this from the beginning, because we don’t know the scope of it.”

Greene went further.

“We are going to create a climate of maybe not distrust, but just lack of real collaboration,” she said. “And this is not our conversation. This is a conversation that has been going on amongst our neighboring districts for … some time now.”