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Adams, Mount Greylock District Taxpayers Invited to Three School Forums
By Stephen Dravis, iBerkshires Staff
02:26AM / Monday, August 24, 2015
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The decision of Adams and Cheshire officials to reach out to Lanesborough has resulted in two other meetings on local school funding and Mount Greylock Regional's offerings.
ADAMS, Mass. — It is back to school week ... for North County taxpayers.
 
While most of the kids may have another week to enjoy the waning days of summer vacation, their parents and other voters are invited to three public forums focused on the present and possible future state of education in North Berkshire.
 
The first forum is Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School in Adams.
 
BArT, which frequently draws fire as an alleged drain on resources from conventional public schools, is hosting the meeting to "address questions and concerns over school financing in Massachusetts."
 
The Adams Board of Selectmen and Adams Finance Committee will be joined by Northern Berkshire Vocational Regional School District [McCann] Superintendent James Brosnan, Adams-Cheshire Superintendent Kristen Gordon and BArT Executive Director Julia Bowen.
 
Earlier this summer, the Adams-Cheshire Regional School District budget was approved only after two tries to pass a Proposition 2 1/2 override in the town of Cheshire and cuts to bring it within the figures OK'd by the Adams Selectmen.
 
The budget battle left at least one member of Cheshire's Board of Selectmen feeling like the town was "the tail wagged by the dog."
 
Meanwhile, a town where officials similarly feel overshadowed by their partner in a regional school district is being wooed by the town of Adams to join the Adams-Cheshire district.
 
That attempt to drive a wedge between Mount Greylock Regional School District members Lanesborough and Williamstown prompted two more forums: on Wednesday at Lanesborough Elementary at 6 p.m. and on Thursday at Hoosac Valley High School.
 
 
Against the backdrop of two straight budget cycles in which Lanesborough pushed hard for cuts to the Mount Greylock operating budget, the town of Adams this month sent a letter to Lanesborough and Williamstown officials to suggest a collaboration. Town officials made it clear in comments — if not in the letter — that Lanesborough might want to send its junior and senior high school students to Hoosac Valley.
 
Adams Town Administrator Tony Mazzucco has suggested the town of Lanesborough could save more than $1 million per year by making the switch.
 
"ACRSD will be showing a little about who they are, what our district is about, what possibilities exist, and what we can do working together with Lanesborough," Mazzucco said when the meeting was scheduled.
 
Thursday's workshop at the newly renovated Hoosac Valley is intended to discuss possible collaborations among the towns.
 
Mount Greylock officials — acknowledging that even talk of breaking up the district could derail an ongoing school building project — scheduled the Wednesday forum at Lanesborough Elementary to remind voters of its member towns about the benefits of their current collaboration.
 
"There are some factions in Lanesborough who are not supportive of making a commitment to Mount Greylock," Mount Greylock Regional School Committee member Richard Cohen, a Lanesborough resident, said at a recent committee meeting. "I think that's a very small number of people."
 
The most recent affirmation of Lanesborough's support for Mount Greylock came at the 2014 annual town meeting, at which an overwhelming majority approved a bond of up to $850,000 to fund the feasibility study that is the first phase of the building project.
 
However, it is worth noting that $850,000 is a long way from the preliminary estimate of $42.7 million, the district's share of an addition/renovation project at Mount Greylock. And that 2014 town meeting was attended by 174 of the 2,095 Lanesborough registered voters (8.3 percent).
 
Given the prospect of campaigning for the building bond, Mount Greylock officials talked about the Wednesday forum as an "opportunity" to start getting its message out.
 
"This is something we'd need to be doing for the building project anyway," School Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Greene said. "We need to talk about the school and why it's important to the community — why it's such a big part of Williamstown and Lanesborough and the surrounding communities.
 
"It's good to have a jump start."
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