Pittsfield School Policy Panel Amends 'Core' Values

By Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
03:56PM / Tuesday, November 08, 2022Print Story | Email Story

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The school policy subcommittee voted to adopt a revised Mission, Vision, Core Values policy after making two amendments during its meeting on Monday afternoon.

Member William Cameron proposed amending the draft to add "Academic Excellence" as a new section in the policy.

The revised section now says the public schools commit to "supporting a community that creates and sustains an atmosphere of intellectual excitement, high student achievement, critical thinking, innovative effective instruction, strong communication, and personal responsibility and growth."

Committee member Sara Hathaway noted that this policy encompasses all forms of student achievement, not just academic.

"One of the points that was driven home to me at the conference that we just attended was that student achievement is the purpose of school committees, helping to ensure that the school system is focused on that," she said.

"They also pointed out that student achievement isn't just academic, and I think this larger mission, the set of core values addresses that."

An "extensive process" of revising the policy began in May 2022, with the District Leadership Council but was then moved to a core committee of staff, family members and community members.

When Superintendent Joseph Curtis presented the draft to the School Committee during one of the meetings, Cameron raised the concern that the draft did not include academic excellence as evident in the proposed core values, Curtis said.

"At that time, I indicated that I would go back through kind of the extensive amount of notes that we have, throughout the process, starting back with the District Leadership Council. As I did recall, a core value relating to academic excellence was in one of the versions," Curtis said.

Curtis sent out the revised draft that included the core value of academic excellence that was in a previous version to the mission and vision committee.

They provided some comments and are now at the point of looking at the proposed draft, the feedback received, possibly making any edits to bring it back to the School Committee.

Tags: Pittsfield Public Schools,

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Advocates Request Pittsfield Office of Neighborhood Safety

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
05:23AM / Monday, August 31, 2026

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Advocates want an office of neighborhood safety within the City of Pittsfield following a string of gun violence incidents this summer.

Last week, during a virtual meeting, the Pittsfield Freedom Project called for public health interventions, such as violence interrupters, hospital violence intervention, and a neighborhood trauma response team.

"I'm sure everyone is aware; there have been at least four shootings. I've heard from people in the community that there have been more than that, but these are the ones that have resulted in injuries," said filmmaker Jenny Herzog.

"Resulting in one homicide and at least seven injured over the last couple of months."

Recent shooting incidents in Pittsfield ranged from June 18, when a person died after being shot in the area of Tyler Street and Pleasure Avenue, and another person was injured, to August 18, when one person was injured after shots were fired on Circular Avenue.

Herzog produced the documentary "Hear Me," which explores the impact of poverty and gun violence on young people in Berkshire County. Attendees also heard from local advocate and fourth-generation Pittsfield resident Kamaar Taliaferro, CEO of the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence Ruth Zakarin, and Ben Snyder, a sociology professor at Williams College.

"Here we are again in another cycle of gun violence, without the tools we need, seemingly without the will to demand the tools, and even if we did, without leadership that would even understand what we're asking for," Taliaferro said.

"And it's not like we don't have the resources to build what we need. At least $1.3 million has come into Pittsfield every year for the past six years, targeted to interrupt the cycle of gun and gang violence that we are in this moment. And dating back even further, Pittsfield has received gun violence prevention money and has received gang violence intervention money since like 2014. Since the last time there was this like emergent cycle of gun violence in our community."