Clarksburg School

The flooring in the 1970s "temporary" addition had been showing its age and had been raised as an issue by teachers over the past few years. The School Committee got a tour last week of the changes, largely done by volunteers. 

"It just feels really clean in here," said committee member Mary Giron. 

Other changes included painting the main hallway and lockers by Mountain View Painters of Adams. The PTA purchased a smart television for the lobby and a smaller wall-mounted monitor in the office so administrators and teachers can track scheduling. 

Principal Kimberly Rougeau said students have suggested uses for the TV, such as posting notifications, lunch menus, and maybe trivia or other engaging activities. 

Not quite completed is the roof, a project that town meeting authorized earlier this year to address numerous leaks in the deteriorating covering. The main section of the roof is completed but some smaller fixes need to be addressed, including rebuilding the awning over the side entrance. D.J. Wooliver & Sons Roofing found the structure to be rotten and it had to be removed; Town Administrator Ronald Boucher had informed the Select Board that it would be about $7,000 to rebuild it.

Rougeau also pointed out some ceiling areas where leaks had come through during the project. She said Wooliver will be making that damage whole. 

The short tour was taken after Thursday's School Committee meeting, during which Assistant Superintendent Tara Barnes updated the committee on the submission of entitlement grants that majorly support paraprofessional salaries. 

"It's really key and integral into the whole idea of helping students in the classroom who are struggling by having that extra person in there to design the instruction a little bit differently," she said.

She said early childhood screening and literacy screening reports for children ages 3 through 5 will be completed and sent to parents by Oct. 1. 

"That screening just alerts us if there's some needs that we might want to put some interventions in place for, or if we want to refer to special education at some point," Barnes said. 

Superintendent John Franzoni said the Northern Berkshire School Union School Committee will be interviewing a candidate for business administrator. The meeting was initially scheduled for Monday at Gabriel Abbot School but has been postponed to Sept. 15 to ensure a quorum. 

Barnes and a team in the superintendent's office have been working on the finances since the business administrator left earlier this year. Franzoni said the district's financial picture is much clearer, "it's definitely a testament to a lot of great work has been over the last six months, because we certainly in March, were not in the same position that we are."

He said there has been good collaboration with the towns, which have been difficult to align because they all use a different system. The town of Florida last year switched to Vadar Systems municipal software, which allows the district to see what the town does; Savoy approved the same system last month. There are still some kinks to work out, Franzoni said, and Clarksburg, Monroe and Rowe don't have that system.

"We're making some steps in the right direction to try to do the reconciliation process throughout the year, not just at the end of the year," he said. "It shows that there's been a lot of good collaborative work done over the summer to not only finish up last year and the previous year, but also work toward this year's being on the same page also."

The superintendent also updated the committee on the regionalization study being undertaken for secondary education in the school union, North Adams and Hoosac Valley Regional School District. 

Hoosac Valley and North Adams have approved language to set up an steering committee that will delineate next steps to creating a joint committee and hiring a consultant. Franzoni said the school union's committee will get the same language to vote on at its next meeting. 

The state has provided $100,000 toward the study, which Franzoni said should "show areas where we can work together should provide the best possible education for the students in those grade levels. 

"But I think also, and it'll help us looking at things like special education, staffing a lot of different areas, how buildings can be best used ... So there's a lot of things that I think will come out of the study that could be helpful to all of those districts."

Joint solutions for providing special education services would be helpful for the North County schools, he said, especially regarding out-of-district placements. 

There has been a significant increase in Clarksburg children attending school; there are 24 new students this year, including 15 in the upper levels. 

"We really have been impacted in our schools, and especially in Clarksburg," the superintendent said.  "Some of them came to us with needs we just can't meet ... we have at least two students that weren't budgeted for that are being transpoted to another location ... we have to figure out a way to pay for that."

He said there is a need to review how space is used in the school to create a classroom for special education programming to keep children here in Clarksburg. Barnes noted, "when you have students — for multiple years — that you have to continue to support, it does make sense to look at a longer-term solution."

It's better for the children to be in the building as much as possible, she said, "because this is their community, and these are their peers, and so we want to try to make that work for them, as well as also thinking about the financial implications of when you're paying out-of-district costs and transportation and all of that."

Barnes said things are "settled at the moment" but there will be a longer conversation ahead.