BUCKLAND — The Rural Communities Summit scheduled for tonight, Thursday, was canceled in anticipation of today’s snow storm.
Instead, both a Massachusetts Rural Schools meeting and the Massachusetts Rural Communities Summit have been re-scheduled for two separate meetings on Tuesday, March 7, inside the Mohawk Trail Regional High School, at 24 Ashfield Road (Route 112).
The Massachusetts Rural Schools Coalition meeting starts at 5 p.m. in the superintendent’s conference room. The Massachusetts Rural Communities Summit will run from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the school auditorium.
The second meeting is a joint meeting between a group known as the Small Towns Summit and the Rural Schools Coalition. The Small Towns Summit is a grass-roots group of town officials that have been meeting to discuss issues common to the hilltowns that go unnoticed by the majority of legislators in the eastern urban parts of the state, including loss of jobs, lack of broadband, low tax base and large percentages of state-owned tax-free conservation land. The schools coalition is largely a group of educators meeting to discuss the special problems of rural schools, such as low enrollment, high transportation costs, lack of broadband and low tax revenues of member towns. This meeting is for both groups to talk about common issues and how to work together to have a stronger voice in Boston.