From the Desk of Superintendent Peter Dillon

Berkshire Hills Regional School District (BHRSD)

Sorry for the break in my writing. The start of school has been very busy. Students and staff are deeply engaged in learning and growth. Highlights outside of classrooms include the fall sports seasons and playoff runs in golf, cross country, volleyball, soccer and football. The Fall Festival of Shakespeare is also going great. As importantly, the high school has formed SAAB, the student adult advisory board, and 53 students and 10 staff held a retreat at Camp Hi-Rock where they started crafting plans to make shifts in 5 areas. More on that work soon. The annual Halloween window painting project is underway. Make sure to see the artists' work in Great Barrington's storefronts.

Berkshire Hills Regional School District has always been entrepreneurial in raising funds to support innovation. We just received more than $1.5 million in two grants to support its afterschool and summer programming and its continued redesign of 9th and 10th grade curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

21st Century Community Learning Centers Grant

We were awarded 3 years of continued 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant funding to support innovative educational and enriching afterschool and summer programs delivered through Project Connection.

Project Connection served over 225 unique students in grades K-12 during the 2021-22 school year and summer, with an average of over 95 hours of support per student during the school year. 17% of these students were ELLs, 16% on IEPs, and 62% from economically disadvantaged households.

Barr Foundation Grant

Monument Mountain Regional High School was awarded a two year, $500,000 grant from the Barr Foundation to support our on-going redesign of our approach to learning and teaching.

The grant supports:

• Improved student learning and growth.
• Increased rigor.
• Refining our advisory curriculum.
• Refining our schedule.
• Better measuring student learning and growth through departmental proficiencies and performance indicators.

As always, feel free to reach out to me with any questions — Peter.Dillon@bhrsd.org

Next issue, I'll share some updates on our work with English Language Learners.

Photo: Joan Gallos