PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With the threat of legal action from staff members, the School Committee has voted not to release the redacted PHS investigative reports and instead re-release the executive summary. 

On Wednesday, elected school officials rescinded a January vote to release the reports with required redactions by Feb. 18, a deadline that was never met, and voted to re-release the executive summary.   

When it came time to vote on releasing the redacted May 2025 Pittsfield High School investigative report, only Ciara Batory and Carolyn Barry were in favor. 

"This is a year of PR that we've been getting on the Pittsfield High report. This has been going on for over a year, nonstop, every other month, something about the PHS report. It has not gone away for a reason, and the reason it did not go away is because people want to know what happened," Batory said. 

"These are people's children. I was reluctant to send my kids to school after reading this. Had I not trusted the schools that my kids go to and have relationships with the front office, I would have pulled all three of my children out of these schools after reading the comments that I read online, and again, as a parent, the only reason I wanted to read this is again because I didn't want to find out information from Facebook." 

Three administrators and two teachers, past and present, were investigated by Bulkley Richardson and Gelinas LLP for a range of allegations that surfaced or re-surfaced at the end of 2024 after Pittsfield High's former dean of students was arrested and charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office for allegedly conspiring to traffic large quantities of cocaine in Western Massachusetts.

Some committee members said the January vote to "release the report in a redacted form by Feb. 18 and have it reviewed by the School Committee before its release to ensure there is enough to present" was confusing.

Batory and Barry thought the motion would release the report, which found allegations of misconduct "unsubstantiated." Batory said unsubstantiated does not mean wrongdoing, and it doesn't mean right doing.