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Charlemont hears multi-town plan to move Mohawk Trail toward single prek–12 campus; MSBA decision due in December
Summary
District representatives briefed the Charlemont Select Board on a 2D8T plan to consolidate toward a single Mohawk Trail campus over 5–7 years, a submitted MSBA Statement of Interest, $255,000 in consultant funding efforts, and community concerns about school closures and reuse of Hawlemont.
Charlemont Select Board members heard a detailed update Oct. 20 from representatives of the Mohawk Trail/Hawlemont district on a regional effort to study consolidating schools onto a single prek–12 campus.
Martha Thurber and Sheryl Stanton, who represented the Mohawk Trail/Hawlemont district, told the board the 2D8T steering committee is pursuing a model that could create a single campus with a separate 6–8 middle school program. They said the plan would take roughly five to seven years to complete and that the district submitted a Statement of Interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA); MSBA representatives conducted a site visit in late September and the district expects to learn whether it will move into the MSBA Eligibility Phase in early December.
The district reported it has raised about two-thirds of a $255,000 fund to engage consultants: Berk12 for educational visioning around a single-campus model and The Hanover Group for further research. About $45,000 of that sum is earmarked to analyze transportation times, projected economic impacts on towns, tax-rate implications and best practices for reusing school buildings.
"Many programs will be tapped to get funding for the construction or renovation," Thurber said, summarizing the district's funding approach. Sherri Stanton told the board the district engaged focus groups and community participants; "we did not get one single no answer in all of those meetings," she said, describing community interest in better academic programming even when that raises questions about local school closures.
Board members and residents raised practical concerns. A resident on the phone asked whether elementary students would be placed alongside older pupils; a district representative confirmed that, if a single campus is adopted, elementary-aged students would be physically separated from middle and high school students. Select Board members also asked whether Hawlemont and Sanderson schools could remain in use; Martha Thurber said she would verify each school's capacity relative to the district's approximately 480–500 elementary students.
Next steps outlined to the board include MSBA review and, if the district enters the Eligibility Phase, development of a revised regional agreement and feasibility work that would set the financing structure. The 2D8T committee aims to have a regional agreement in place before next fall so towns can consider Special Town Meetings and votes. Thurber and Stanton emphasized that voters would see proposals at multiple stages and that towns would vote on financing and any regional agreement revisions.
The Select Board did not take formal action on the plan at the Oct. 20 meeting. The district's consultants, the MSBA SOI and the 2D8T recommendation documents were provided to the board for further consideration.
