This is the story of a high school. This is the story of school committees, superintendents of schools, and high school principals and staff who provided the best education possible. This is the story of one of the top ranked high schools in Massachusetts. This is the story of the Searles High School.
For 69 years as an improperly designed school building, overcrowding, sickness, half sessions, a Depression, remodeling, and even through wars, the Searles High
School of Great Barrington, Massachusetts persevered and with capable school committees, progressive superintendents and principals, caring teachers and
parents, and with a curriculum that was always changing to fit the needs of the student body, this school, from a small rural community, turned out a successful
product in the form of quality education for all. This led to, and to that end, of being recognized and honored for decades by the State of Massachusetts as a grade “A”
school, which meant if was considered to be one of the eminent high schools of its day in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
David Rutstein is a graduate of the University of Vermont and holds a master’s degree in American history from the State University of New York at Albany. He was a teacher of high school world and American history in New York and in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.
He served as historian in residence to the William Cullen Bryant School in Great Barrington as part of this school’s centennial year celebrations. He also has taught a course on Berkshire county history in Berkshire Community College’s extension program. He is a past president of the Great Barrington Historical Society and is a member of the Great Barrington Historical Commission. For six summers he has hosted walking tours of historic downtown Great Barrington as a guide and raconteur.
