Mt. Greylock Regional School District

On Thursday, July 19th, MSBA visited Mt. Greylock to conduct a Senior Study site visit lasting three hours as a follow-up to our submitted SOI (Statement of Interest). MSBA is reviewing over 250+ SOIs this summer that were submitted in January, 2012.

MSBA arrived at 11 AM with a team of four — two MSBA staff members and representatives from the firm of SVT – a contracted engineering company from NY. Mt. Greylock had a team of five — Superintendent Rose Ellis, Chair of the School Committee,Bob Ericson, Business Director David Donoghue, Jesse Wirtes Facilities/Grounds and David Backus of the Building Committee. The visit began with a 45-60 minute Q/A session — SVT's architect asked me to speak to each of the four priorities we highlighted in the SOI and to elaborate how the current building is negatively impacting educational programming at Mt. Greylock. The SVT's engineer asked pointed questions of Mr.Wirtes, Mr. Ericson and Mr. Backus.
Next, we took the MSBA team on an 1 1/2 hour tour of the building and visited selected areas that demonstrated what was described in the SOI.

I asked MSBA about "next steps". They indicated they will review their notes and write a Report in response to the visit that eventually will go up on their website. MSBA will have two meetings one on October 3rd and an another on November 16th to determine which schools will be invited to participate in the next phase — the Eligibility Period. They will notify us either way.

MSBA representatives were active listeners--acknowledging our team was well prepared, seizing every opportunity to underscore our needs, problems, and serious concerns. They inquired about the financial/political ability of the towns to support a building project. I informed them that Williamstown is well aware of the building's long-time deficits and Lanesborough has included a "place holder" for a building project/bond in their 10 year financial plan — a good sign for a future building project.

I contacted our local legislators and informed them of MSBA's visit. I look forward to following-up with them.
Now the waiting begins — again. I will keep you posted.

-Rose Ellis