Charges dropped against Berkshire educator involved in child’s 2024 drowning death

Giver Essien died in Benedict Pond at the Beartown State Forest in Great Barrington on a fieldtrip with the Pittsfield Public Schools Herberg Middle School’s 21st Century Summer Program. According to the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office, the educators leading the trip did not realize Essien was missing until students were loaded onto a school bus a half hour after they began exiting the water. An investigation found that rather than separating into two groups, all 35 students had entered the pond at the same time. Linda Whitacre, the program’s coordinator at the time, was arraigned in August on charges of involuntary manslaughter, permitting serious bodily injury of a child, and reckless endangerment. Berkshire Superior Court Judge Michael K. Callan moved to drop the charges on May 13. The other educator facing charges over Essien’s death, then-Site Supervisor Meghan Braley, continues to face the same charges in court.