WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School District's elementary school principals Thursday presented their fiscal year 2026 budget requests to the School Committee.

 

The presentations followed last month's discussion about needs for the middle/high school with Principal Jake Schutz, who also Thursday reiterated those budget requests.

 

Lanesborough Elementary School Principal Nolan Pratt told the committee that the preK-through-6 school is requesting level staffing for the 2025-26 school year.

 

In terms of new funding initiatives, Pratt again called for an investment in short-throw projectors.

 

"I think I've asked for this each of the last four years," Pratt said. "Our projecting system is like having a chalkboard at this point. We have these big, chunky projectors that take up a big section of primary real estate in the classroom, and a lot of our curriculum is now digital.

 

"The whole process of having a cumbersome projector — and we have a different projector in each room — it's becoming a hindrance to our education."

 

Pratt said LES currently has four up-to-date projectors but needs probably 20 more to achieve equity in the school, "so everyone has access to the work that needs to be done."

 

Pratt proposed that the school add four new projectors per year for five years, which would also create a budget line in the capital plan to allow for regular updates down the road.

 

He also brought the School Committee a third ask for FY26 that aligned with the budget priority for Williamstown Elementary: converting to the i-Ready mathematics curriculum that both schools have been using on a trial basis.

 

"Two teachers are currently piloting it, in Grade 3 and Grade 5," Pratt said. "They both like the program. They think it's much better suited for our school. I've been able to hope into a couple of these classrooms. The program is developed in a way that structured critical thinking helps students understand some complex concepts.

 

"Students are engaged and talking to one another. And when they're doing side-by-side work, they're talking about the math, talking about the ideas."

 

Williamstown Elementary School interim Principal Griffin Labbance agreed.

 

"We are piloting i-Ready at the kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade2, Grade 4 and Grade 6 level," Labbance told the committee. "So far, it's going well. We're getting good feedback from teachers and students on the work they're doing."

 

Like at LES, the WES School Council is proposing that the School Committee support level staffing in the budget it sends to voters in Lanesborough and Williamstown to OK at their spring annual town meetings.

 

Labbance also had a technology ask for the Williamstown school.

 

"We are lucky our [Grade K-6] classrooms do have smart technology in them," Labbance said. "Our pre-K clasrooms do not have any smart tech. Pre-K teachers are seeing kids coming to them using technology at home, being comfortable using devices. So our pre-K classrooms would love to have some sort of smart board for students to interact with and enhance their work."

 

Labbance also said WES would like money in the budget to upgrade its auditorium with a smart projector. He said the school increasingly uses the space for activities during the school day and it is hosting more evening programs for families.

 

"Having a projector in there would make our ability to have community events in the evening and events for students easier," he said.

 

While the elementary schools are looking for level staffing for FY26, the Mount Greylock School Council is requesting that the School Committee support an increase of four full-time equivalent faculty members for the coming school year.

 

Schutz laid out the reasons why at the committee's December meeting. On Thursday, he provided more context in terms of the program of study that he is proposing for the middle/high school.

 

One of the proposed new faculty positions, if filled, will have ripple effects for staffing in other academic departments, Schutz said.

 

Right now, some of Mount Greylock's wellness classes (physical education and health) are being taught by teachers and staff from other departments. Adding a full-time wellness position to the budget would free up teachers in English, history and biology to teach electives that the school currently cannot offer, Schutz said. And the two wellness sections currently taught by one of the school's social workers takes away from the time those professionals can devote to their regular duties.

 

The other positions Schutz is asking to put in the budget for FY26 are teaching spots in Spanish, mathematics and visual arts. The new Spanish FTE would not represent a complete increase of one full-time position in the budget, though, because the current faculty already are teaching on an "extended contract" to meet demand for classes in the language, Schutz said; the district already is paying .2 FTE toward those extended contracts that could be wrapped into a new full-time position, if added.

 

Course offerings in both the world languages department and the visual arts department have been the subject of extensive public comment before the School Committee in recent years. In 2023, a group of parents gave an extensive presentation about the benefits of offering visual arts classes in the middle school that currently do not fit in the budget. Last year, an 11th-hour appeal from students, parents and alumni convinced the School Committee to preserve Latin classes for the 2024-25 school year.

 

On Thursday, interim Superintendent Joseph Bergeron, saying he wanted to be transparent, implied that Latin again could be on the chopping block.

 

"Given the number of FTEs Mount Greylock is looking for, we're going to have to [budget] in a way that is as respectful but also as thorough as we can," Bergeron said. "Is there anything we can give up? … We're looking at areas where we don't have enrollment in numbers nearly in the way we do, say, in Spanish. I know we discussed Latin last spring as an area we're not seeing the type of interest it had many years ago.

 

"I do want to signal that we're going to be discussing that again this year. I want to do it in a way that is thorough and gradual."

 

Bergeron also signaled to the committee that the FY26 budget process as a whole could be painful.

 

The district currently is waiting on word of the governor's FY26 budget proposal that is due in the next couple of weeks to nail down revenue projections for the coming fiscal year. And it will not know for sure until Jan. 27 what number to plan for health insurance costs in the year ahead.

 

But Bergeron, who sits on the board of the Berkshire Health Group, indicated that the line item will increase substantially from the fiscal year that ends on June 30.

 

"As of the last month when the Berkshire Health Group board met, the cost picture for next year was not pretty," he said. "The consultants … said we're looking at 9, 10, 11 percent in terms of the types of increases they would be saying we need to approve."