Hi folks, I am wondering if anyone commutes via route 2 past North Adams/Williamstown area?

I relocated to North Adams this past September for a job in Williamstown and have been trying to volunteer at a meditation center in Shelburne over weekends. This goal was a big influence on my decision to relocate to this part of Massachusetts. Being involved in the meditation community has been an important value in my life. However, I didn't realize the scarcity of public transportation in this area before arriving and not having a driver's license nor car has posed a difficult barrier.

I thought to inquire here in case any of you happens to pass North Adams/Williamstown if you commute via route 2, in which case I would love to connect to explore a potential rideshare possibility if you'd be interested and willing - please feel free to PM me here.

Thank you!

I posted this on the r/Northampton sub first because it’s the most active forum for the region, but I figured I might as well post on the actual r/greenfield sub too. I’m hoping to hear from folks familiar with the Pioneer Valley in general.

My husband and I had initially considered moving to Northampton, but the housing market there is very expensive and, most importantly, he got a job in southern New Hampshire, so we’re planning to move to the Greenfield area. I want to learn more about the school system there.

Our ideal location is relatively inflexible because it needs to be between commuting distance from his job in New Hampshire and our family in northern Connecticut. At this point we’ve visited Greenfield and Turners Falls ~5 times and we really loved how walkable Greenfield is while still being close to activities throughout the Pioneer Valley, and an equal commuting distance between NH and CT. So Greenfield is our target location.

One thing that concerns me about Greenfield, however, is the public school system performance. Looking online, it seems like Greenfield public schools perform unusually poorly — 10-30% on reading and math proficiency. We don’t have any children yet, but that’s in our future plans, so we’re a little concerned about these statistics, especially because we rented through the “starter home” phase of our lives, so we’re planning to skip right past that and buy a larger, long-term home in Greenfield. Ideally, we wouldn’t move again for at least 15 years.

So are the public schools in Greenfield really that bad..? I saw that there’s private schools, some of which seem way more “elite” than anything I’m familiar with in my life, but the most affordable private elementary/middle school seems to be Greenfield Center School (serving pre-K through 7th) and it performs fine on state exams. Then there’s the Four Rivers Public Charter School for 7th-12th which seems pretty good if your child can gain admission. I think we could make it work for Greenfield Center School, with financial aid, but private school is an expense we’d never imagined. I also heard that Massachusetts has a lottery system for “public school choice,” but I haven’t really looked into it yet.

So I’m curious to hear from any parents or those who know parents in the Pioneer Valley, and what your experience or knowledge is of the various school options, through personal experience or your acquaintances.

We’re pretty dead set on Greenfield at this point — communities like Montague and Shelburne are more rural than we have in mind, while South Deerfield could be a possibility but there’re rarely any houses for sale there, and Easthampton/Northampton/Amherst are too far south to happily make a regular commute to NH — so I just wanted to get a better sense of what we’re getting ourselves into when it comes to the school system in Greenfield

Okay, I live in greenfield and sometime in 2022 there were these flyers taped to light poles asking you if you had "signed up for the talent show"/"what are you bringing to the talent show?" I guess I never took any pictures of them, even though they were kind of weird. The flyers had no number to call, no website to visit and were just in plain black text on white paper. I think the last time I saw one was maybe spring 2023? But honestly that's just my best guess, I'm not really sure. I definitely haven't seen any of them in the last year or so. If anyone has any pictures or even just remembers seeing them please let me know!