North Adams School Building Committee to Review Building Options

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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The School Building Committee has some important dates coming up as it determines which school project will be submitted for approval to the Massachusetts School Building Authority.  
 
It will meet twice in September to narrow down the current options to three — and this will largely depend on the grade configuration that the School Committee will vote Aug. 29. 
 
The school district has held one public forum already on grade configuration (the video can be found here) and a second one is set for Tuesday, Aug. 22, at 5:30 p.m. at Brayton Elementary's Welcome Center and over Zoom
 
The question is whether to keep two kindergarten through Grade 6 schools or to create a preK through Grade 2 school and a Grade 3-6 school. The decision will help determine whether to close Brayton or Greylock elementary schools. The choices are currently to renovate or rebuild Greylock or renovate Brayton as either combined or split grade schools, made back in June
 
The MSBA is expected to reimburse up to 80 percent of eligible spending on a school project. The project is currently on schedule and on budget. 
 
A survey put out by the schools system had 877 responses of which 82 percent were from North Adams, 44 percent from parents/guardians, 25 percent from faculty and 22.4 percent from residents (those who do not have children in the schools or will not be affected by the reconfiguration).
 
Those preferring either an preK-2 or preK-6 school were about even; broken down into sectors, faculty was more in favor of the split grade option while parents/guardians leaned marginally toward preK-6. 
 
Superintendent Barbara Malkas said there have been a number of issues raised, including concerns over transportation, keeping children in the same families in the same school, the concept of the neighborhood school 
 
Others saw a split in grades as keeping children with their peers through their education journey, having a more focused development program, not having to travel between schools for programming and having more opportunities for inclusion with peers.  
 
"Amongst among the faculty respondents, certainly the benefit of being able to collaborate across grade levels really, I think, educators can definitely see the benefits of that," she said of splitting the grades. "And with ensuring that there's greater consistency with regards to curriculum delivery and instructional modality."
 
The recommendation for grade configuration will be made by the policy committee, Malkas said. "The policy that governs our organization of our schools is called the organization of instruction. It is an approved School Committee policy."
 
The committee also reviewed the criteria it will use for determining school project selection, such as cost, siting, community connection and access, education delivery and social emotional learning support, technology, special education, parent engagement, traffic patters, dropoff and pickup, work and meeting areas, STEAM learning, welcoming, proximity to fields and play areas, environmental issues and sustainability, transportation, neighborhood, topography, pedestrian access, parking, security and emergency access, and cohesive layout and accessibility. 
 
"The option development will happen after the Aug. 29 decision on which which way to go with the grade configuration," said Julia McFadden of TSKP Studio, the project's designer. "Then we'll develop the options and bring them to you, then we'll have those options cost estimated and bring that to you. 
 
"And then you'll be asked to select a preferred option from those three."
 
She anticipated coming to the Sept. 5 School Building Committee meeting with some initial development of the options and more fully developed product by the second meeting on Sept. 21. 
 
"And then finally, Oct. 12, is selecting the preferred option because we'll be coming up with cost estimates at that time that factor in to the other metrics that we're reviewing," McFadden said. 
 
The School Committee will vote on the recommendation on Oct. 17 and the preferred schematic design will be submitted to the MSBA on Oct. 26. 
 
Tuesday's meeting had a quorum but was lightly attended. That can't happen in these upcoming meetings, said Malkas. 
 
"We need to make sure the message gets out that these are important meetings coming up," she said. "While tonight we don't have a lot of expectation for School Building Committee decision making, the coming meetings in September, there will be expectations of voting on items that will ultimately determine the outcome of this project."

Tags: brayton/greylock project,   MSBA,   

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North Adams School Finance Panel Reviews Fiscal 2026 Spending Plan

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Finance & Facilities Committee took a deeper dive this week into next year's school spending plan.
 
The draft proposal for fiscal 2026 is $21,636,220, up 3.36 percent that will be offset with $940,008 in school choice funds, bringing the total to $20,696,212, or a 2.17 percent increase. 
 
Business and Finance Director Nancy Rauscher said the district's school choice account would be in relatively good shape at the end of fiscal 2026. 
 
As a practice, the district has been to trying not to exceed the prior year's revenue and to maintain a 5 percent surplus for unexpected special education expenses. However, this year's revenue would be about $500,000 so the amount used would be significantly more. 
 
"But given our current balance, we could absorb that in the net result of what we're anticipating in the way of revenue next year," Rauscher said. "Relative to committing $940,000 to school choice spending next year, that would leave us with a projected balance at the end of FY 26 of a little over $1.2 million, and that's about 6 percent of our operating budget."
 
But committee members expressed concerns about drawing down school choice funds that are projected to decrease in coming years. 
 
"I think mostly we're going to go through this and we're going to see things that this just can't be cut, right? It's just, it is what it is, and if we want to provide, what we can provide," said Richard Alcombright. "How do we prepare for this, this revenue shortfall?"
 
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