On Thursday, the School Committee held its annual public hearing on the budget. In year s past, that has been the night the panel votes to approve the spending plan it will send to member towns Lanesborough and Williamstown with the property tax assessments voters will consider at their respective annual town meetings. I m going to keep on saying draft, draft, draft all night long because this is a work in progress, Business Administrator Joe Bergeron said in presenting the budget to the board. As recently as March 3, the district told the Williamstown Finance Committee that it would be ready with final budget numbers for the Fin Comm to review at its March 17 meeting.
Racist incident during Zoom class at Mount Greylock Regional School in Williamstown under investigation, officials say
Updated Jan 28, 2021;
Officials at Mount Greylock Regional School laid out a series of measures Thursday they say will be implemented to address a racist incident that occurred during a Zoom class at the Berkshire County school last week.
Citing an incident report from Principal Jacob Schutz, The Berkshire Eagle reported that on Jan. 21, an unknown student impersonated one of their peers during the virtual class and unmuted themself to play a song that included lyrics saying “f the n-word.” The individual is believed to have been targeting another student with the song.
The next regular meeting of the School Committee is Feb. 11, but it was clear from the public comments at the start of last week's meeting that some in the community are unwilling to wait until the middle of next month for a revision to the MOU that allowed classes to begin in September.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee continues to hear from parents concerned about the lack of in-person instruction for most children in the PreK-12 district even as the panel works to modify the agreement with its unions to allow just that. The committee held an executive session after last Thursday s meeting to discuss strategies with respect to collective bargaining with its union personnel. And Superintendent Jason McCandless said on Friday that he has asked the committee to look at some dates for a special meeting to consider a revised memorandum of understanding with the Mount Greylock Educational Association.
Committee member Jose Constantine pointed to some dire national statistics about the effect of teaching in a remote or hybrid model and asked whether the Lanesborough-Williamstown schools were seeing similar consequences from the COVID-19 pandemic. While the major decision from the committee s last 2020 meeting was a move to address perceived physical education and co-curricular needs, students academic needs consumed more time during the 4 1/2-hour public portion of the virtual session. There is some data out there that suggests our K-2, K-3, early learners could be 22 months behind where they should be, he said. It s not that the pandemic has stalled their learning. They may have even regressed.