The superintendent who oversees four schools in western Massachusetts has announced she will retire at the end of the year.Dr. Rose Ellis will leave with 15 years of experience working with the Williamstown and Lanesborough Elementary schools as well as the Mt. Greylock Regional School District.
“I feel that my schools are strong, they’re solid, capable of taking on the challenges ahead and I know there will be challenges,” Ellis said. “But there’s been opportunity to strengthen the schools and that has been gratifying.”
The Tri-District was created in 2010 with Ellis at the helm overseeing more than 240 faculty and staff, and 1,300 students. The districts share administrative offices and services, but still have separate committees and governing bodies. Carrie Greene, the current chair of the Mt. Greylock School Committee, helped drive the effort that unified the various districts under Ellis’ direction with Greylock’s superintendent Dr. William Travis retiring in 2010.
“There were some serious challenges when she came on board,” Greene said. “We were in needs improvement we’ve now been a Level One school in the state for three years. That represents not a small amount of work. The dedication that she has shown to the faculty in terms of professional development and technology and support in developing curriculum.”
With more than four decades in education, Ellis also helped foster partnerships with Williams College and Multicultural BRIDGEof Pittsfield, introducing students to technology and social issues at younger ages. Beyond saving thousands of dollars through shared services, Ellis says aligning curriculum among the schools was key.
“Sometimes there would be a feeling that students get to sixth grade and ‘Oh now what do we do? Do we go up to the middle school at Mt. Greylock or do we go someplace else?’” Ellis explained. “So folks didn’t really see Mt. Greylock as the flagship school, which in my experience typically the high school is the school that everybody wants to go to. So it was an opportunity when I came on in 2010 to create that synergy between the elementary schools and the middle school/high school.”
Ellis became superintendent of the Williamstown Elementary School District in 2000 and took on the same position with Lanesborough in 2008. With that unification, Ellis helped create School Union 71 to better align curriculum and programming between the schools. Valerie Hall chairs the Williamstown Elementary School Committee.
“I’ve been amazed in working with her that she has a grasp on all of the day-to-day issues at the school, but at the same time she has never let go of looking to the future; what should our school be looking like in three years or five years and how do we move ourselves there,” said Hall.
Since Ellis previously said she would not renew her contract set to expire at the end of June, the school committees have already started considering how to approach the search for a replacement. With Ellis leaving at the end of December, Greene says the committees along with district administration must decide whether to go the interim route or focus more on a permanent replacement. Greene adds ongoing considerations like a new Greylock school, complete regionalization and even further regional expansion could be a factor when looking at candidate experience and outlook.
“I think there are some things that will perhaps shape the search in terms of what the current priorities are, but the long term vision of collaboration I think is going to become the priority, even if we don’t regionalize,” said Greene.
