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By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

AMHERST — Clare Higgins, the executive director of Community Action Pioneer Valley, was blunt when describing the current crisis in retaining and finding early education staff.“They can’t pay the rent or feed their families with gift cards and...

GILL — Julia Zhao, a Northfield Mount Hermon School alumna and senior at Columbia University, has been named a 2023 Rhodes scholar for China.Only 120 scholars are chosen each year to receive a Rhodes scholarship, a fully funded, full-time,...

By DOMENIC POLI

ORANGE — The Ralph C. Mahar Regional School District is looking at a nearly 5% increase in its budget if the proposed figures survive the Annual Town Meetings of the four towns the district serves.The proposed fiscal year 2024 budget of $15.5 million...

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

AMHERST — Educational issues pertaining to schools across western Massachusetts — including transportation, rural inequities and a lack of sufficient state aid — peppered the discussion of a Joint Ways and Means Committee hearing at the University of...

By DOMENIC POLI

CHICOPEE — A former Federal Street School principal who is now living in Florida won $4 million in the Massachusetts Lottery while he was back in the state last month to meet his fourth grandchild.James Devine, of Estero, Florida, purchased a...

By ALANIS BROUSSARD

Even though child care is an essential need for families in the United States, a history of limited government support prevents many families every day from getting the adequate child care they need.For years, the American child care system has...

By MARY BYRNE

GREENFIELD — Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution will host a forum Tuesday evening on school funding. The virtual forum, which will start at 7 p.m., will begin with a slideshow to present an overview of how school funding works while...

By MARY BYRNE

GREENFIELD — Greenfield Community College (GCC) is developing a paraeducator training program that administrators hope will address vacancies in the field across the state and locally, while also reconceptualizing the role as a first step in a career....

By MARY BYRNE

GREENFIELD — With minimal discussion, the School Committee voted Friday morning to accept Superintendent Christine DeBarge’s proposed $23.15 million budget for fiscal year 2024.The budget represents an increase of roughly $2.17 million, or 10.35%,...

By CHRIS LARABEE

BUCKLAND — As Mohawk Trail Regional School District presented its fiscal year 2024 budget with several new student initiatives on Thursday, Plainfield officials raised concerns about the impact of their town’s increasing assessment.Superintendent...

By CHRIS LARABEE

SOUTH DEERFIELD — After a robust discussion on state funding and limited feedback on the Frontier Regional School District budget itself, the School Committee approved the fiscal year 2024 budget Wednesday evening.At Tuesday’s public hearing, Director...

By BELLA LEVAVI

BUCKLAND — Mohawk Trail Regional School Librarian Emily Willis was honored with a Pioneer Valley Excellence in Teaching Award for her work creating an innovative curriculum, curating a diverse and student-centered book collection, and crafting a...

By MARY BYRNE

GREENFIELD — Superintendent Christine DeBarge is proposing a $23.15 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year, representing an increase of roughly $2.17 million, or 10.35%, over fiscal year 2023.“That 10% increase does not scare me,” said School...

By BEN TOBIN

Sixty-thousand mollusks. It’s hard to conceive of that many invertebrates in one location. That is, however, the number of mollusks discovered at the home of famed epistemologist Jean Piaget after his death in 1980.Sixty thousand octopi, snails,...

By MARY BYRNE

GREENFIELD — Parents and teachers appealed to members of the School Committee Wednesday night, asking them to reconsider the recommendation put forward last month on how to best “reenvision” the use of school buildings in the district. “The idea of...

By MARY BYRNE

GREENFIELD — As part of her fiscal year 2024 budget proposal, Gov. Maura Healey hopes to fund a new program that would make nearly 1.8 million residents eligible to receive “last dollar support” for a community college education. “I think this would...

ORANGE — An initial presentation of the Ralph C. Mahar Regional School District’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2024 will be held in the school’s library at 6 p.m. on Thursday.Elizabeth Teahan-Zielinski, superintendent of the Ralph C. Mahar Regional...

By DOMENIC POLI

CONWAY — The National Education Association designated March 2 as Read Across America Day. But Conway Grammar School didn’t want to limit celebrations to just one day.The rural school serving students in kindergarten through sixth grade decided to...

By CHRIS LARABEE

After the Special Commission on Rural School Districts’ report called for a significant increase in rural school funding, Gov. Maura Healey’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2024 shows an initial step toward fulfilling that request.The commission’s...

By EMILEE KLEIN

GILL — When Northfield Mount Hermon School senior Angus Chang engineered an artificial leaf, a sustainable battery of microalgae and metal suspended in hydrogel, he felt his creation was too simple to consider impressive. After all, Chang’s...