BUCKLAND — There will be a smaller number of School Choice seats available to families outside of the eight member towns who seek to have their elementary-age children enroll in the Mohawk Trail Regional School District.
With the district exploring the possibility of consolidating its schools to a single campus, Superintendent Sheryl Stanton said this new School Choice plan was put in place to make sure that if the district needs to close an elementary school, there will be sufficient open seats for in-district students to transfer.
“The district presented a different approach than in years prior,” Stanton said. “We know that we are in the middle of a sustainability study, which has the aspirational goal of a single campus. This would require the district to create a transition plan in the next few years so that if a single campus came to be, we would have space in our local elementary schools to have students transition to the single elementary school.”
The Mohawk Trail School Committee approved the School Choice numbers for the 2026-2027 school year in a 9-3 vote after a lengthy discussion at the May 13 meeting, and following an amendment to Stanton’s originally proposed numbers. The vote allows for a maximum of 29 School Choice students to be accepted at Sanderson Academy in Ashfield, a maximum of six at Colrain Central School and up to nine at Buckland-Shelburne Elementary School.
Additionally, Stanton is proposing up to 70 School Choice students be accepted at Hawlemont Regional School.
Colrain Central School is seeing the largest reduction, only offering School Choice seats in sixth grade, despite technically having open seats in every grade but preschool.
In addition, this new plan would no longer allow the siblings of School Choice students to follow them into the district, which was standard practice before.
Following some discussion on Stanton’s proposal, School Committee member John Chivers made an amendment to add some seats back at Buckland-Shelburne Elementary, with one School Choice seat in third grade and four in fourth grade. Originally, Stanton’s proposal only included four School Choice seats in sixth grade. His amendment was approved, bringing the total to nine.
With this affirmative vote, Colrain Central School will only accept School Choice students in sixth grade; Buckland-Shelburne Elementary will accept them in third, fourth and sixth grades; and Sanderson Academy is accepting them in preschool, and third, fourth, fifth and sixth grades.
Before the vote, some School Committee members raised questions over what message reducing School Choice seats would send to the public. Member Rachel Wang asked if it sends the image that consolidation is inevitable.
William Lataille, the district’s business administrator, said that regardless of whether the school district consolidates to a single campus, Mohawk Trail is “going to be closing schools eventually because the district can’t sustain itself at this point, and our towns have been very clear this year … that they can’t vote for these budgets.”
So far, of the eight member towns, Colrain and Buckland have voted down the school’s operating budget. Heath, Hawley, Shelburne and Ashfield have approved it. Charlemont and Plainfield are the only towns left to vote, on May 26 and May 30, respectively.
“We’ve got to start looking at things a different way,” Lataille said. “I think that this is the way that we have to start thinking is, if we accept these students in, and in two years we need to close an elementary school … we’re going to need to look at that.”
School Committee member Robert Sears said the committee has to start somewhere when looking for ways to mitigate problems that could come up in the future, and that members can’t be afraid to embrace change “because we’re afraid of public perception.”
“Reducing School Choice seats allows the district more flexibility if a full consolidation doesn’t happen, and the reality is that we are closing schools,” Stanton said. “We still need to have [space] within the district to educate kids.”
