Monterey Seeking Submissions for Town Flag Design

11:23AM / Tuesday, July 26, 2011Print Story | Email Story

MONTEREY, Mass. — The Selectmen and sate Sen. Benjamin B. Downing, D-Pittsfield, are sponsoring a contest to design an official flag for the town to hang in the Great Hall at the State House.

Residents are encouraged to submit a flag design: teachers, students, seniors, artists or any individual or group interested in creating a piece of Monterey history.

Once chosen, Monterey will present its flag to state officials in Boston. The Bureau of State Office Buildings began a project to improve the acoustics of the Great Hall in 1992 by collecting the official flags of the 351 commonwealth communities and hanging them throughout the space. State House visitors are often awed with the degree of detail represented in the flags and how they proudly display a community's history and heritage, said Downing

"Over the past two years, I have welcomed delegations from Pittsfield, Stockbridge, Otis and New Marlborough to the State House so they could present their flag to state officials," he said. "When visitors come to the State House and realize their hometown is not represented in the Great Hall, they are often disappointed. I'm excited to kick off this process and look forward to the day when Monterey's colors are hung in the Great Hall for all to admire."

Flag contest entry forms are available at www.montereyma.gov or can be picked up at Town Hall at 435 Main Road or at the Monterey Library at 452 Main Road. The deadline for submission is Oct. 31.

The community at large will vote for the top five finalists; those designs will then be judged by a panel of Monterey officials. The winning design will be announced on Dec. 12 and the new flag will be raised locally on Jan. 9, 2012.

After the local ceremony, Downing will host a delegation from the community in Boston to officially present Monterey's new flag to BSB officials at the State House.

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Pittsfield Schools See Better Building Utilization, Continued Choice Outs

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
01:24PM / Wednesday, August 19, 2026

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Students return to school in two weeks; Pittsfield will have one less elementary school and around 100 fewer students.

The School Committee was updated on enrollment for the 2026-2027 academic year during last week's regular meeting.

At this time, the Pittsfield Public Schools had 4,586 students, compared to 4,682 at the end of the 2025-2026 school year. Superintendent Latifah Phillips said this has been the district's trend for years and is not surprising.

"Across all of these grade levels, we have a decrease. I believe of about 80-90 students. I think it's at eighth grade that we're going to look into and make sure that our data is accurate," she said to the School Committee last week.

"But otherwise, the enrollment is following the trends that we have expected in probably the last decade."

With this school year comes the closure of Morningside Community School and the middle school restructuring that sends Grades 5-6 to Herberg Middle School and Grades 7-8 to Reid Middle School.

Fifth grade enrollment was subtracted from last year's elementary enrollment, and these reflect the reassignment of Morningside students to Allendale, Capeless, Egremont, and Williams.

Phillips pointed out that this process has increased the use of school buildings, as underutilized buildings were one of the concerns that led to institutional changes.

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