I am a mom and community organizer over the mountain in Colrain in the Mohawk Trail Regional School District. We have formed a coalition of parents, community members, schools and towns to work to restore adequate education funding for our schools. Our group WMassCOUNTS or Western Mass Coalition Of UNderfunded Towns and Schools is launching an Initiative known as the declining enrollment circuit breaker or RED-CB (Rural-Economically challenged- Declining). This will bring ten million in additional aid to our schools in 42 towns covering both municipal and regional districts. We need your help whether to write letters and make phone calls in support of the proposal which would help regionals like Adams-Cheshire, Central Berkshire and town's like Florida, North Adams and beyond. You can find the proposal online for the list of towns. As a disclaimer the proposal is still in review with the legislators and there is pressure to expand it to include wealthier towns since as it stands only Western Mass towns benefit and we don't have a lot of weight by our selves politically. This means it is even more important for towns, school committees, selectboards, finance committees, regional groups, parents, community members to write those letters in support of the "RED-CB". Warm regards, Lorena Lonergan
A press release about the initiative was posted at the iberkshires.com homepage