WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School District plans to open up 32 new school choice slots between its three schools for the 2022-23 academic year, the School Committee learned last week.

 

Superintendent Jason McCandless had previously announced a plan to open up 15 new slots at Lanesborough Elementary School to help offset increased use of the district's school choice reserve in fiscal year 2023 spending plan.

 

At Thursday's monthly School Committee meeting, McCandless provided more detail of what he has characterized as a return to past practice after a couple of years without significant School Choice opportunities in the district due to the uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

As expected, the plan includes the 15 seats at LES, where the district plans to open six new school choice seats in fifth grade, three in fourth grade, four in third grade and two in kindergarten.

 

At Williamstown Elementary, the plan presented Thursday adds eight new slots: two apiece in third through sixth grade .McCandless also said he plans nine new School Choice seats at Mount Greylock Regional school: five in ninth grade, three in 10th grade and one in 12th grade.

 

The new seats would increase the percentage of school choice slots in the student population at each school but keep it within norms, McCandless told the School Committee.

 

At Mount Greylock, if all 40 of the school choice slots (31 existing plus nine new) are filled, choice students would represent 7.6 percent of the middle/high school population. At the elementary schools, the percentage would be even lower, 6 percent at WES and 2.8 percent at LES.

 

"You could look at school districts, even in Berkshire County, that are 20, 25, 30, 35, almost up to 40 percent driven by school choice," McCandless said. "One school district is, literally, 39-point something of their entire population is school choice students.

 

"Because Lanesborough and Williamstown remain attractive places to live, and our home enrollments are holding steadier … we don't have as many of these seats as some of our neighbors have. And our philosophy, I think, is quite different. We don't exceed 7 or 8 percent in any of our individual schools. I think for districts that are demographically like ours, size-wise like ours, 10 to 15 percent looks to me like it's pretty common across the commonwealth."

 

School choice is a statewide program since 1993 that allows schools to accept students from outside the district. If there are more applicants than seats in a given year, applicants go into a lottery with preference given to siblings of students already participating in the School Choice program. Once a district accepts a school choice student, it is obligated to keep that student through 12th grade.

 

By state law, districts receive $5,000 per school choice student per year, well below the annual cost of educating a student in a public school.

 

Mount Greylock has traditionally used School Choice slots to fill "empty" seats in grade levels without pushing a grade's population so high that it requires additional sections, thereby adding cost. In the current academic year, the Lanesborough-Williamstown district has 74 students enrolled through School Choice and 39 students from the member towns who are attending schools in other districts through School Choice, a net positive of 35 students, or, from a revenue standpoint, $175,000.

 

McCandless also shared with the School Committee a draft job description for a director of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging that he hopes to add to the district's central office in FY23.

 

The candidate he hopes to hire will be expected to provide leadership in the district and the community to "build programs, initiatives, practices, and accountability measures that promote inclusion, equity, social justice, diversity, and belonging," develop a "comprehensive bias incident plan based in transformative justice principles," and coordinate resources, including DEIB speakers and "resource tool kits to help students, families, and staff both to respond to discrimination and othering and also promote community support and belonging."

 

McCandless recognized that the job description as drafted is lengthy and would ask a lot of whoever earns the position, and he said the job likely will be tailored to the successful candidate.

 

"It's just a little overwhelming to consider that there really is not anybody who can fulfill everything we're looking for," he said. "There are some amazing people in the greater world and even here locally who do this work. But we understand this is our wish list. We understand that when we get someone in … nobody will be able to fulfill these expectations.

 

"But we are looking for a wonderful, dedicated, expert person. And then, looking at what their strengths are and what some of their learning areas are, we can customize what the actual work is."

 

McCandless said he likely will first post the job as a prospective position to raise awareness among likely candidates and later post it more formally once the FY23 budget is approved by town meetings in Lanesborough and Williamstown this spring. He said he already has received input from community members about avenues to find qualified candidates.

 

In other business on Thursday, the School Committee heard a request from alumni of the Mount Greylock baseball program to dedicate the varsity field at the middle/high school to retired coach Steve Messina, who led the Mounties to four Western Massachusetts championships and 20 post-season appearances in 28 years.

 

"We obviously don't do it for the money for 28 years," current varsity coach Rick Paris told the committee. "He did it for the love of the game, the love of the kids and impacting their lives. … To this day, kids still come back to find him and say hi to him."

 

The committee invited public feedback on the proposal, which it hopes to take up again at its May meeting. Per the district's policy, the School Committee needs to specify a "consideration period" for any such naming requests.