Berkshire Hills Regional School District Mission
To ensure all students are challenged through a wide range of experiences to become engaged and curious learners and problem solvers who effectively communicate, respect diversity, and improve themselves and their community.
- Student Achievement/Growth/Enlightenment
- Foster an intellectually challenging and supportive education that expands academic and career opportunities for all.
- Expand learning beyond the school walls to include nature, the community, and with partners.
- Excite and engage students in learning
- Problem solving shall be used as an educational tool in and across disciplines
- Students will demonstrate their achievement and growth in a variety of ways and the data will be used effectively in the evaluation and revision of curriculum and instruction.
- Use flexible schedule to meet varied student needs: pre-test, post-test, in order to allocate resources efficiently
- Use personal relationships to maximize a social-emotional safety net.
- Explicitly make curricular connections between and across grades, schools, and districts.
- The school experience is engaging, verdant, and empowering.
- Challenge our expectations and approaches to working with the underserved.
- Human Infrastructure
- Focus on an unrelenting commitment to success for all students and all staff.
- Foster leadership opportunities for both young people and adults including a partial rotating administration position.
- Make decisions that are good for students first and adults second (these don’t need to be mutually exclusive).
- Use evaluation to set standards, recognize excellence and/or challenges provide support and when necessary after providing feedback and support to dismiss ineffective staff.
- Study and potentially pilot incentive pay programs to encourage excellence and innovation.
- Take true advantage of our sacred professional development time.
- Resources/Financial Planning/Infrastructure Maintenance
- Increase revenue through adding new K and 1 sections while maintaining class size.
- Generate other income through reworking contracts, writing grants and individual solicitations.
- Collaborate additionally to increase opportunities and potentially realize savings.
- Revisit how we allocate resources: funds, space and time in support of our goals.
- Rework how we use time including reconsidering the length of the school day.
- Rethink roles.
- Shift from a culture of advocacy for individual programs to one of problem solving for all students.
- Work to improve food offerings, including additional healthy choices, and realize efficiencies.
- Communication/Collaboration
- Be clear and transparent.
- Be explicit about the work in schools.
- Ensure that each student is well known by multiple adults.
- Ensure that adults are collectively responsible for small groups of students.
- Make schools more community oriented.
- Redefine existing roles (Role clarification: SC, Supt, Dept chairs/dept liaison, students and families).
- Looks past building to campus, past campus to district and community, past district to collaborating districts.
- Tap into and enhance the role of alumni.