What is the root problem here?

Mohawk Superintendent Sheryl Stanton has said at many public gatherings that the root problem is that “we’re 25% overemployed”—as if employment in good, working- and middle-class jobs is a problem. We do not believe that our teachers and paras are to blame, nor are our children, nor is our need to work for a living. We are deeply skeptical of Stanton’s suggestion that a higher unemployment rate leads to sustainability. 

The problem is that the state has not met its obligation to its citizens (even the state’s wealthiest towns are laying teachers off and proposing enormous tax increases, according to The Boston Globe).

How many elementary schools is the School Committee trying to close?

All four of them: BSE, Colrain, Hawlemont, and Sanderson, leaving one super-sized campus for our 250-square mile district, the largest district by area in the entire state.

How many jobs does the School Committee want to cut?

The plan is to cut 65 jobs (see slide 140 here). From what we’ve been able to determine, it looks like about 80% of these cuts, or 52 positions will be at the elementary level. That’s about 13 per school. 

So, think of everyone you know who works at your local school, think of their names and faces, and then imagine 13 of them without work.

How would these job cuts affect our local economy?

Neither 2D8T nor the School Committee have done the work to answer this question. 

However, it stands to reason that cutting a quarter of the workforce of the area’s largest employer will be felt widely. 

The loss of paychecks means less to spend in small businesses and restaurants. (Case in point: Have you ever seen Shelburne Falls right after school gets out? The shops and streets are busy with grandparents, parents, caregivers, and groups of older elementary students walking home from BSE and shopping. This is a tradition that generations of families have enjoyed.)

Towns without schools often see their property values decline. Because there is no other comparably sized educational employer in the area, teachers and paras who see their jobs cut will have to travel widely in order to work; many will likely move away, or, if they have kids in the district, will pull them to attend schools closer to their place of employment. This will accelerate the district’s drop in enrollment, which will further reduce our state funding, which will mean the district has to rely even more on raising property taxes on properties that are losing value…and so on in a vicious downward spiral.

But we’re losing enrollment, right? 

Well, it depends on how far back you want to look. Compared to the late-90s, yes. But 2D8T’s own research shows that elementary school enrollment has been holding steady for about a decade, and total enrollment has been significantly increasing for the last five years (see slide 6 here). This is a picture of a district that has turned the corner—thanks to our educators and staff. Now is the time to do everything we can to support our schools, our teachers, and our towns, not foreclose upon them.

Ok, but at least school closures and layoffs will help provide tax relief, right? That’s the School Committee’s entire rationale for all of this!

At a community meeting at Sanderson Academy in December 2025 members of 2D8T and the School Committee confirmed that no one will see their tax bills go down if we shut all the elementary schools. 

This isn’t going to save taxpayers money? Why not?

A big part of the answer is that we would need to build something new at Mohawk. 2D8T’s back-of-the-napkin estimates range from over $30 million to $145 million (see slide 114 here). These are very preliminary numbers, and the final cost is yet to be determined.

At the same time, Franklin County Tech is proposing a $256 million building project, a cost that will also have to be borne by the towns.

But 2D8T and the School Committee keep saying that the state will reimburse us for 70% of the building costs.

This is flat untrue. The state may reimburse us for 70% of the reimbursable costs. What the School Committee and 2D8T have yet to say out loud is that the reimbursement rate for total costs has historically been around 44%—which means that, according to 2D8T’s preliminary estimates, the district’s taxpayers would have to pay up to $81,200,000 to house our students. And this figure does not include paying for the new Franklin Tech campus.

What’s going to happen to the abandoned school buildings? And who is going to pay for them?

Once those schools are closed, the full cost of maintaining them and/or converting them for another purpose will be borne by the taxpayers of those towns—no state reimbursement, no school district help.

Ok, so when will we know how much the new building is going to cost?

In December, 2025, the Massachusetts School Building Authority admitted the district into its Eligibility Period—the first step in planning, authorizing, estimating, funding, building, and reimbursing new construction. It is a long and complex process (for more, see the MSBA’s site here) and the district has not been clear on either the timeline or the costs. (Aside from the cost of the building, there’s a cost associated with undertaking the MSBA’s process itself—again, the district has been unclear what the cost is or when we’ll learn of it, though it sounds as if we’ll have an opportunity to vote on it because it will be paid for by our taxes.) 

It is the MSBA timeline that drives the eight-town vote on whether or not we close our schools. (Note: each step in those green boxes has a yet-to-be-determined cost attached to it...which we are also going to have to pay).

Who makes the decision to shut our schools down, and when will that decision be made?

While the School Committee has decided that closing schools is the only path they’ll pursue, the ultimate decision lies with us, the voters. 

The School Committee wants to hold special town meetings (typically very poorly attended) and has indicated that these would be held in later November (or smack in the middle of the holiday season, when many folks are traveling) of 2027.

In order for any of this to pass, all eight towns will have to unanimously vote to shut our schools.

Part of the vote will also involve rewriting the school-district’s charter, which is essentially the document laying out how the district will be governed.

Any idea of how the charter will change?

2D8T is working on that as of spring, 2026, but it sounds like two of the big changes will be in the balance of power between bigger and smaller towns and scrapping the requirement for unanimous votes. We will update this as we learn more.

Our district is huge. If we close all the elementary schools, what does that mean for bussing?

It's a long way from the edges of towns like Hawley, Heath, Plainfield and Colrain to the proposed site of the new school. 

According to 2D8T, the best way to save money on bussing is for a single run, which means that K–12 students would all be on the same bus.

Additionally, moving to a single campus would increase the number of students who are on the bus for more than two hours a day, from 23 students to 39 students.

While no elementary-school child is currently on the bus for more than an hour each way, the School District’s plan would mean that ten K–6 children would spend two hours a day on the bus. Eight of these would be the very youngest children, in K–3. By the time they graduate, these students will have 4,320 hours of their life, or six solid months, on a bus.

What might this mean for you? What happens if your student misses the bus? How long will your car ride be, and what effect will this have on your ability to make it to your job on time? What happens if your student needs to get picked up in the middle of the day, or from an after-school event that gets out before the working day is over? How would you make this work? Would you be able to be a part of your child’s school life?

Since 80% of the proposed staff cuts will take place at the elementary level, how will the increased caseloads of our special education teachers, interventionists, and specials teachers (Art, Music, PE, and Library/Technology) affect the education of our elementary students?

This is a great question—one that the district has no answer for. One would imagine that fewer teachers, larger classes, and less support will lead to more educator burnout, whose costs will ultimately be paid by our children. In fact, according to Hanover Research (one of the four consultants the School Committee has hired), elementary education suffers in schools with more than 400 students.

How many families will choice out of the school district if these changes happen? What would my town look like without the local community gatherings at the school that are town traditions (concerts, potlucks, ice cream socials, musicals, fun runs, etc.)?  Are young families likely to move to towns with no schools in them? What effect will shutting our schools have on the long-term viability of our towns?

These are some of the most important questions to ask, because schools are the foundations of our towns’ culture, identity, economy, and future. 

Unfortunately, neither the School Committee nor 2D8T have ever publicly addressed any of these questions.

We believe that our towns have no future without children, and there are no children without good, local schools. There is nothing sustainable about shutting the future down.

Ok, it looks like foreclosing on our schools is a terrible thing, but if we don’t close our schools, what are we going to do? Is there any hope of having a truly sustainable school situation?

Yes, there is hope—but it is going to take all of us. Remember, closing our schools does not fix the root problem. Here are a few bright points to consider:

• • Nearly every district in the entire state is in trouble. While this might sound like bad news, it means that this is not Mohawk’s problem to fix alone. This is a moment for state-wide collaboration and solidarity. It is a moment of real opportunity.

  • Our western Mass elected representatives know how dire the school funding situation is, and State Senator Jo Comerford has even sponsored a bill, An Act to Provide A Sustainable Future for Rural Schools, which would create a Rural School Aid Fund and would receive $60,000,000 each year from the state’s General Fund to aid districts like ours. This would be transformative.

  • In 2022, Massachusetts voters passed the Fair Share Amendment (or Millionaire’s Tax), which asks the richest among us to pay a very small increased tax on that part of their income over $1 million. That tax revenue is earmarked for infrastructure and schools—and it is bringing far more than estimated (more than $2 billion a year). Franklin, Hampshire, and Berkshire counties voted overwhelmingly for the amendment, but nowhere was it more popular than in Franklin County, where it passed with 68.1% of the vote. Nevertheless, we are not yet getting our fair share of the Fair Share amendment.

  • There is widespread, state-wide momentum to fix Chapter 70 funding—literally everybody knows that it is broken. Here’s a good rundown from the Massachusetts Teachers Association.

  • Grassroots involvement. This is where you come in. 

    • The Mohawk School Committee is working hard to make every one of us feel like closing schools is inevitable (perhaps you’ve seen one of their many ominous flyers that says “Change is Coming”). But it is not. The future of our schools and towns is only inevitable of the School Committee convinces you to give up.

    • Nor is there anything inevitable about the direction the School Committee has chosen. Imagine, instead, if they had spent that $650,000, 2+ years, and hundreds of volunteer hours in grassroots community organizing, celebrating our schools and teachers, working with the Massachusetts Teachers Association (the folks who brought us the Fair Share Amendment), and directing our collective democratic voice at Beacon Hill—imagine what such a school committee could accomplish.

But they haven’t. That’s a shame. But it doesn’t change the fact that the power is really with us, the voters.

So get and stay informed—join our monthly newsletter where you’ll find calls to actions, maybe join our action group (send an email to osot.info@gmail.com if you’re interested). 

But don’t stop there, or take our word for what’s happening to our district. Make up your own mind. Sign up for 2D8T’s newsletter. 

The Greenfield Recorder’s Madison Schofield is doing an excellent job reporting on our schools—keep your eye out for her byline. 

Go to Mohawk’s School Committee Meetings and 2D8T’s meetings, and make sure to ask questions (don’t be intimidated by the tone, and make sure they answer your question).

Talk with your friends and neighbors, teachers and paras.

Or maybe you’d like to run for School Committee—if you’d like to run on a pro-student, pro-teacher, pro-education ticket, we’d love to help. You can see whose term is coming up here.

We are a grassroots, community group of volunteers—no fancy consultants, no large budget, just a sense of Hilltown pride and the willingness to stand up for our friends and neighbors. We’ll be updating this information as we learn more—if you learn something and want to share it with us, especially if you have a document or news article we can link to, please reach out to osot.info@gmail.com.