Voters from seven Southern Berkshire County communities will vote tonight on a proposal to merge two under enrolled school districts. The plan would combine Southern Berkshire Regional School District – comprised of Sheffield, Alford, Egremont, Monterey, and New Marlborough – and Berkshire Hills Regional School District, which covers Great Barrington, Stockbridge and West Stockbridge. While supporters say the need to consolidate due to declining population is inevitable and would halt the rising cost of education, critics say it would shutter beloved local schools and hurt the identity of smaller communities.
On Saturday, the Egremont community decisively rejected the merger — meaning any unanimity between the eight communities is already off the table. For Great Barrington – the largest of the communities involved in the merger – the special meeting will take place tonight at 6 at Monument Mountain Regional High School. To understand what’s at stake before ballots are cast throughout the region, WAMC spoke with Berkshire Hills Regional School District school committee chair Steve Bannon – a member of the Regional School District Planning Board and chair of the Great Barrington select board.
BANNON: From my perspective, and from the Regional School District Planning Board Committee, which I've been a member of since its inception, the two school districts are small, and merging them- We'll still have a small school district, there'll be some economy of scale, there'll be some saving some money, increased educational opportunities. It just makes sense that we can't continue as two small school districts forever. It just doesn't work.
WAMC: Now, this also would theoretically bring a new high school building to Great Barrington, which has been a topic of conversation for some time, given the ongoing state of Mondrian Mountain Regional. Any thoughts on that, the new school of at all?
Yeah, I mean, it would be wonderful to have both districts combined and build a new high school. But Berkshire Hills Regional School District is planning to go it alone if this fails, and we hope it doesn't fail. And we will be, in the next couple of years, bringing to the voters a vote for either new or renovated high school.
This comes after a vote in Egremont that decisively rejected the proposed merger. Putting on your regional hat and looking at this from the school merger planning commission standpoint, what do you read into that vote? And then what does it say about the viability of this plan as all these towns go to make their decisions this evening?
Obviously, the Egremont vote was a blow to the merger possibilities. But I think it's important that tonight, all seven towns remaining let us know how they feel about the merger. And if all seven towns approve it, or six out of seven, then the Regional School District Planning Board and the towns, the eight towns, have a decision to make whether to try to come up with some sort of a solution or to drop it completely. But it's really important tonight that people come out and still vote.
We saw folks in Egremont express a lot of skepticism that this merger might negatively impact communities that are going to lose schools that have been there for a long time if the consolidation was to go through, or those communities might experience some sort of economic hit from this. Can you speak to those concerns?
Yeah. The plan as we move forward, which was turned down by Egremont, was to keep all K-8 buildings open. There was no plan to close any of the elementary or middle schools. And as a matter of fact, in the regional agreement, it is equally as hard to close any of the schools as it is in either Berkshire Hills or Southern Berkshire’s agreement, and just to consolidate the high school. People have a right to their opinion, and some people are against it. But we feel, the Regional School District Planning Board and the Berkshire Hills Regional School District school committee, still thinks it's a very viable plan.
There were also concerns expressed that eventually, even the K through 8 schools in some of these other communities might eventually also close. Can you speak to that? Putting on your forecasting hat for regional consolidation, that’s maybe perhaps not so abstract a fear.
No, I think there's always a possibility as the number of students declines that school buildings could close. But that could happen now without the merger, or with the merger. There is no greater chance that a school building would close with the merger. And as a matter of fact, the merger would end up having six members of Southern Berkshire and five members of Berkshire Hills on the newly formed school committee.
Let's turn to the economics for Great Barrington. From your perspective, where do you see this impacting the town the most should the merger vote go through? If this carries out, and there is eventually a merger, what's this going to do to Great Barrington with the newly merged district largely hinging on a Great Barrington location?
So, what the newly merged district will do for all eight towns, but for Great Barrington, will slow down the increase in the budgets. The budgets are still going to have some sort of an increase. There's inflation, there's just the cost of doing business. But it will definitely slow down. The increase in the projected savings in the first couple of years for all eight towns, not for Great Barrington, is between $1 million and $1.5 million. If this doesn't pass, I assume all eight towns will see a continued increase in their operating budgets for the years to come.
A concern that I heard from some folks in other districts was also about Career Technical Education opportunities in the eventual merged high school. Can you speak to that? Would there be, still a place for vocational training and workforce training in a future merged high school?
In the merged high school and in the new high school, if it's approved by the voters, there's going to be six, projected six vocational programs certified by the state. Right now, Berkshire Hills has three and we're planning to expand it to six whether the merger goes through or not. out. And there's what's called a Pathways, an alternate way of also getting education through career vocational technical education. And that's really important. Southern Berkshire doesn't have that right now. You'd have to go up to Pittsfield or farther to get that, and we feel that's really going to be a benefit of both a new school and, we hope, a merged district.
Part of this process was complicated by the fact that emotions were running high, and it was a situation where even speaking with Beth Regulbuto, who is the superintendent of the Southern Berkshire district, she was sort of openly vocally skeptical of this even heading into the vote to reject the plan in Egremont over the last few days. Can you speak to me about that? Because while the Regional Planning Board and the merger board have seemed to have a lot of consensus in that body, there are still a lot of outliers and a lot of- It seems like the consensus has not really been formed, fully heading into this vote.
Consensus on whether to merge or not on the Regional School District Planning Board was very clear. The only ones who were- The majority who were against it were members of the Southern Berkshire school committee, which I respect, and everyone has a right to their opinion. I just hope that folks will look at the facts before they vote tonight, and really be able to figure out emotions versus facts. And if they do, I think it makes sense to have the merger.
From that perspective, looking at the numbers themselves, what do you feel like are the most pertinent pieces of statistics heading into tonight's vote in Great Barrington?
I think the statistics people will need to look at is the declining enrollment in both districts, and the viability of maintaining these small districts in the future. And I think when you look at that, I think it becomes clear that merging districts is the best thing for the students of our all of our towns.
And as far as the bare minimum required from the votes throughout the region to move the plan forward- Certainly a unanimous decision is now officially off the table. But what does this mean if only half of the towns approve it, if less than half approve it, if everyone except for Egremont approves it- What are some of these scenarios moving forward after tonight's votes?
I've heard a lot of scenarios. I think ideally, all eight towns approving it would have been the best scenario, but that didn't happen. So, I think now it becomes important for us to figure out if four towns think it's good and four towns think it's a terrible idea, it's probably not going to move forward. So, I think tonight really becomes important for everyone to let us know how they feel. And we put a lot of work into it, but it doesn't mean it's a perfect solution, and if it's voted down by a majority of the towns, then we just move ahead the way we are for now.
