In a unanimous vote, the committee signed off on restructuring Pittsfield’s middle schools into one upper elementary school for all city students in grades 5 and 6 and one junior high school for all city students in grades 7 and 8 by the 2026-2027 academic year.
“For equity purposes, getting all of the kids in the city of the same grades together is hugely important. I am not a fan of the argument that, I bought my house in this side of the city because I want my kids to go to this school, because, to me, that's inherently inequitable. All of the schools in the city should be providing all of our kids with the same opportunities," said committee member Diana Belair. “You shouldn't have a different education experience because you bought your house in a certain part of the city. So, putting all of our kids together in the same group ensures that we're giving all of our fifth and sixth graders the same opportunities, all of our seventh and eighth graders the same opportunities. These kids are already playing sports together, they're playing basketball and baseball together- They will be happy to go to school together.”
Pittsfield is Berkshire County’s urban hub, and its almost 5,000 students make it the region’s largest public school district.
Chair Dr. William Cameron said the city had to act now if it was serious about confronting longstanding inequity in its education system.
“Standing still and doing nothing won't help us address the racial, ethnic, and economic class stratification of our current middle schools, whose attendance areas are designated by neighborhoods more or less in proximity to Reed and Herberg,” he said.
Committee members said they believe the restructuring will also reduce bullying and increase retention rates for the district.
Vice Chair Daniel Elias acknowledged that many in Pittsfield remain skeptical of the plan, and praised Superintendent Joseph Curtis’s leadership on the issue.
“This is never popular, redistricting, realignment," said Elias. "It's never popular, and it's seldom ever done, because no superintendent will ever take it on because they know the ramifications of that action. The superintendent did, and you did so because you realized that to get to a different level, this is something that had to be done. And a 20-plus [member] committee also looked at it and came to the same conclusion that to get out of this hole, to get further, we need to do this.”
Curtis told the committee that transportation plans for the proposed changes remain unknown.
“The transportation plan is dynamic, and it depends on one crucial thing: Who's riding the busses?" he explained. "And, so, if we don't know who's riding the busses, and we typically don't know until August, then we can't map out routes- Routes, equal timing, etc.”
As leaders finalize the restructuring plan, the committee approved a safeguard measure introduced by Mayor Peter Marchetti that will automatically trigger a one-year delay in the plan if major questions remain in December.
“I could live with moving that piece of the school committee so that everything is done in December 2025, but if we haven't made these items, I don't want to be rushing it January through April trying to make it happen," said the mayor. "If we haven't met the benchmarks that are here in this timeline, it would be an automatic one-year extension. So, we're moving, but we're not rushing if we're not ready to make this happen.”
The meeting was also Curtis’s last as superintendent. A controversial pick from the time he was selected in 2021, Curtis announced his plan to step down from the role in February after facing overwhelming community outcry over his handling of a series of staff misconduct allegations triggered by the arrest of a Pittsfield High School dean on federal cocaine trafficking charges in late 2024.
“I fully recognize that I am not universal, universally popular, and have I've accepted that reality since my early days of my career, dating back to 1994," said Curtis. "From the beginning, I've operated with a clear guiding principle, if your focus is on championing the needs of the children we serve, then we are aligned. If your priority is yourself over students, then we are not. And I've never wavered on that distinction.”
Chair Cameron offered parting praise to commemorate Curtis’s 32-year run with the Pittsfield Public Schools.
“Pittsfield has benefited greatly, and I stress that adverb, greatly, from Joe Curtis's three decades of service," he said. "Particularly as superintendent, he's taken on major educational projects to promote excellence in the classroom and to improve our schools' environments for learning. It will now be up to others to see these projects through to completion. Joe has made himself available to the public in ways no other Superintendent of my acquaintance has ever done. He has been as selfless a superintendent as I have known in 47 years in public education.”
Curtis’s tenure officially ends on July 1st. Interim Superintendent Latifah Phillips of the Lowell Public Schools was selected to take over.
Audio from the meeting is provided by Pittsfield Community Television.
