Visualizing the possibilities of school consolidation

GREAT BARRINGTON — As the Mohawk Trail and Hawlemont regional school districts inch closer to presenting voters with a new regional agreement that would allow for a single-campus district, administrators, teachers and school committee members took a field trip to the Berkshires on Monday to see what consolidation could look like.

Representatives visited the W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School in Great Barrington to see what could happen if they constructed a separate elementary school building on the Mohawk Trail Regional School property in Buckland. Mohawk Trail is undergoing an eligibility phase with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) to explore the possibility of either new construction or an addition and renovation project that could accommodate students in the elementary grades, and what the best layout would be to balance affordability and student needs.

“We decided that as a team everyone was going to look at different models for schools, whether it was a single campus or different grade spans. I said that I had been to the school and it was a five through eight grade span, and that I was just super impressed at the way fifth grade was still fifth grade, sixth grade was still sixth grade, and seventh and eighth was more of a middle school type of model,” said Berkshire Educational Resources K-12 (BERK12) project researcher Judy Rush. “I thought that it would be really helpful for everyone to come down and see that, because part of the sustainability model is the potential of sixth grade moving into middle school.”

Last spring, the Two Districts, Eight Towns (2D8T) Steering Committee voted to pursue an aspirational goal of consolidating all students onto a single campus at the Mohawk Trail Regional School site. Part of that consolidation would include moving the sixth graders into Mohawk Trail’s middle school wing.

At the W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School, representatives got to learn about the Berkshire Hills Regional School District. In 2005, the district underwent its own consolidation to bring students to a central location. The district now has the middle school, and across the street is the Muddy Brook Regional Elementary School. Located about a quarter-mile down the road is the Monument Mountain Regional High School.

W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School Principal Jake McCandless told the Mohawk Trail and Hawlemont visitors that consolidation has allowed Berkshire Hills to more easily share resources and expand programming for students, while the physical layout of the buildings and the broader campus has allowed grade levels to remain separate. At Du Bois, the fifth and sixth grades are on opposite ends of one wing on the first floor; seventh and eighth grades are on the second floor; and shared spaces like the gymnasium, art and music classrooms, and cafeteria are on the first floor.

“It’s really quite remarkable how those two wings operate almost as two schools within a school,” McCandless explained. “We do occasionally have five through eight gatherings where we all get together, but for the most part we run as a fifth grade neighborhood, a sixth grade neighborhood, and then seventh and eighth grade neighborhoods.”

McCandless and Assistant Principal Ellen Rizzo said that at all grade levels, students have different teachers for different subjects and travel from room to room for classes. At the fifth grade level, students are put into a cohort with the same class schedule, so they are with the same classmates all day — as they would be in elementary school.

“It definitely is unique. I’m always impressed by our educators that meet the needs of students,” Rizzo said. “Fifth graders in middle school? It’s kind of a scary jump, but they really make it feel like upper elementary.”

They added that students have a homeroom, which they call advisory or crew, so students have a teacher that they can get to know and connect with. Additionally, while they are separated for classes, students do have some time mixing with other grades. The fifth and sixth grades have lunch and recess together, as do the seventh and eighth grades.

McCandless has only been with the district since the summer of 2024, but he said he imagines the closing of schools across the district must have been difficult at the time. However, he feels consolidation has provided great opportunities for students and staff.

“I’m sure it felt like the heart of your town was being ripped away by the school going away, but instead now there’s the heart in the existing buildings,” McCandless said. “But now there’s a new really robust heart that beats right here on this campus.”

Having the three schools in such close proximity has allowed staff to collaborate across grade levels and undergo subject-based professional development, and allow students to explore new opportunities, McCandless said. For example, he said the middle school has been able to collaborate with the high school to allow a seventh grader to take horticulture classes at the high school.

“This just makes it much easier,” said seventh grade English language arts teacher Brendan Heck. “There are so many benefits to having everyone in one spot.”

Mohawk Trail, Hawlemont and BERK12 representatives said the tour was “incredibly helpful,” and as they continue to envision what the future of the two districts could look like, they hope to visit the Southern Berkshire Regional School District, and potentially other school districts, to see other models of consolidation. In Sheffield, the Mount Everett Regional School, serving grades six through 12, shares a campus with the Undermountain Elementary School, serving students in kindergarten through fifth grade.

“We have to come back to what’s best for the kids,” Hawlemont School Committee Chair Kenneth Bertsch said.