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Berkshire Interfaith Organizing, a 19-member organization, operates out of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Pittsfield.

Weekly Zoom Call Supports Immigrant Pittsfield Residents

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
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PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Twenty to 30 Spanish-speaking residents are connecting each week through a virtual coffee hour. 
 
Under new Lead Organizer Dondei Dean, Berkshire Interfaith Organizing has been hosting the two-hour conversation space, called Cafecito, that is working toward getting communications from Pittsfield Public Schools translated into Spanish.
 
Cafecito was planned as an in-person meeting until COVID-19 hit. It was then converted to a virtual meeting in the form of a Zoom call.
 
"Because there was such a need for connection and community, especially at the beginning of the pandemic," Dean said. "Cafecito really took off."
 
BIO is a nonprofit community organization of 19 faith and values-based institutions across Berkshire County founded in 2015. It's been focusing on three areas of common cause — racial justice, transportation and immigrant justice. 
 
In mid-September, Los Angeles native Dean was hired as the lead organizer. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where she majored in studio art and minored in government and Spanish, in which she is fluent.  
 
Dean had previously been working with BIO for two years as a community organizer. As lead organizer, she now gets more control over priorities within BIO.
 
In regard to her new position Dean said, "I am enjoying it, it's different in the best way."
 
At the beginning of this year, Dean and Nancy Gomez, the community navigator for Working Cities Pittsfield, had an idea to create a Spanish-speaking conversation space.
 
They planned Gomez's portion of the time in Cafecito to present attendees with resources such as Berkshire Community Action Council's heat assistance program or current events at Berkshire Immigrant Center. Dean's time would be used to facilitate conversation and hear what people care about and what they want to see happen in their community.
 
Each week, about two-dozen people tune in to the two-hour Spanish-speaking Zoom call.
 
Dean, Gomez, and the attendees have been building relationships, getting to know each other, laughing, joking, and sharing stories of struggle.
 
When COVID-19 stimulus checks came out, members of Cafecito talked about the struggle of not receiving one because they aren't citizens. Undocumented parents are worried about how to support their children during this time, Dean said.
 
"There was laughter, there was also struggle," she said.
 
As schools are starting to reopen, Dean and Gomez realized that a common denominator of Cafecito attendees is that a lot of them are women and a majority of them are mothers. When information was sent out about hybrid learning and reopening, they were upset that all of the information was in English with no translation options.
 
For example, not all Cafecito participants understood a back-to-school presentation in August about hybrid learning and schedules for the upcoming school year. One woman was concerned because she had a son going into the 6th grade and did not know what the first day of school was. Dean reported that other parents were relying on small children to translate this information for them, making the parents feel that their ability to guide and hold a sense of parental authority was undermined.
 
In response, Dean and Gomez are created a campaign with six main points of what Spanish-speaking parents need from Pittsfield Public Schools. The first goal is to secure accurate and consistent information from the Pittsfield School Department and then from all schools in the county.
 
"We are not the only ones struggling with this here in Pittsfield," Dean said.
 
The campaign includes interpretation of all school communications, including letters and voicemails from the superintendent. Additionally, they want interpretation of everything the first time around without needing to request a translation.
 
"If you're a mom and you get that voicemail and you don't speak English, what good is it?" Dean said.
 
A translation of the slides from the presentation containing information about returning to school was provided in Spanish. The school system also agreed to transcribe Zoom presentations in English, then translate the transcription and re-record it in Spanish. The public schools has a page set up for Spanish speakers and a multilingual helpline.
 
The rest of Cafecito's six points are in negotiation.
 
"I just want them to be able to access consistent, quality interpretation and I know that's what they want, too," Dean said. "So my job as organizer is to support them making it happen."  
 
BIO is focusing a lot of its energy to immigrant justice right now, said Dean. As a wider society, she said, there is a need to make sure that people who are most affected by the issues at hand are also at the table helping with solutions. This is an ethic that BIO is committed to.
 
She noted that these kind of changes are not quick ones. Though Cafecito started in March, the number of attendees increased only a couple of months ago as Dean has slowly built trusting relationships.
 
"We're working really hard," she said. "But we want to do it the right way."

Tags: berkshire immigrant center,   berkshire interfaith,   Spanish,   

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Crosby/Conte Statement of Interest Gets OK From Council

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

Architect Carl Franceschi and Superintendent Joseph Curtis address the City Council on Tuesday.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With the approval of all necessary bodies, the school district will submit a statement of interest for a combined build on the site of Crosby Elementary School.

The City Council on Tuesday unanimously gave Superintendent Joseph Curtis the green light for the SOI to the Massachusetts School Building Authority by April 12.

"The statement I would make is we should have learned by our mistakes in the past," Mayor Peter Marchetti said.

"Twenty years ago, we could have built a wastewater treatment plant a lot cheaper than we could a couple of years ago and we can wait 10 years and get in line to build a new school or we can start now and, hopefully, when we get into that process and be able to do it cheaper then we can do a decade from now."

The proposal rebuilds Conte Community School and Crosby on the West Street site with shared facilities, as both have outdated campuses, insufficient layouts, and need significant repair. A rough timeline shows a feasibility study in 2026 with design and construction ranging from 2027 to 2028.

Following the SOI, the next step would be a feasibility study to determine the specific needs and parameters of the project, costing about $1.5 million and partially covered by the state. There is a potential for 80 percent reimbursement through the MSBA, who will decide on the project by the end of the year.

Earlier this month, city officials took a tour of both schools — some were shocked at the conditions students are learning in.

Silvio O. Conte Community School, built in 1974, is a 69,500 square foot open-concept facility that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s but the quad classroom layout poses educational and security risks.  John C. Crosby Elementary School, built in 1962, is about 69,800 square feet and was built as a junior high school so several aspects had to be adapted for elementary use.

Ward 6 Councilor Dina Lampiasi said the walkthrough was "striking" at points, particularly at Conte, and had her thinking there was no way she would want her child educated there. She recognized that not everyone has the ability to choose where their child goes to school and "we need to do better."

"The two facilities that we are looking at I think are a great place to start," she said.

"As the Ward 6 councilor, this is where my residents and my students are going to school so selfishly yes, I want to see this project happen but looking at how we are educating Pittsfield students, this is going to give us a big bang for our buck and it's going to help improve the educational experience of a vast group of students in our city."

During the tour, Ward 5 Councilor Patrick Kavey, saw where it could be difficult to pay attention in an open classroom with so much going on and imagined the struggle for students.

Councilor at Large Alisa Costa said, "we cannot afford not to do this" because the city needs schools that people want their children to attend.

"I know that every financial decision we make is tough but we have to figure this out. If the roof on your house were crumbling in, you'd have to figure it out and that's where we're at and we can't afford to wait any longer," she said.

"We can't afford for the sake of the children going to our schools, for the sake of our city that we want to see grow so we have to build a city where people want to go."

Councilor at Large Kathy Amuso, who served on the School Building Needs Commission for about 18 years, pointed out that the panel identified a need to address Conte in 2008.

Curtis addressed questions about the fate of Conte if the build were to happen, explaining that it could be kept as an active space for community use, house the Eagle Academy or the Adult Learning Center, or house the central offices.

School attendance zones are a point of discussion for the entire school district and for this project.

"At one time I think we had 36 school buildings and now we have essentially 12 and then it would go down again but in a thoughtful way," Curtis said.

Currently, eight attendance zones designate where a student will go to elementary school. Part of the vision is to collapse those zones into three with hopes of building a plan that incorporates partner schools in each attendance zone.

"I think that going from eight schools to three would be easier to maintain and I think it would make more sense but in order to get there we will have to build these buildings and we will have to spend money," Kavey said, hoping that the city would receive the 80 percent reimbursement it is vying for.

This plan for West Street, which is subject to change, has the potential to house grades pre-kindergarten to first grade in one school and Grades 2 to 4 in another with both having their own identities and administrations. 

The districtwide vision for middle school students is to divide all students into a grade five and six school and a grade seven and eight school to ensure equity.

"The vagueness of what that looks like is worrisome to some folks that I have talked to," Lampiasi said.

Curtis emphasized that these changes would have to be voted on by the School Committee and include public input.

"We've talked about it conceptually just to illustrate a possible grade span allocation," he said. "No decisions have been made at all by the School Committee, even the grade-span proposals."

School Committee Chair William Cameron said it is civic duty of the committee and council to move forward with the SOI.
 
He explained that when seven of the city's schools were renovated in the late 1990s, the community schools were only 25 years old and Crosby was 35 years old.  The commonwealth did not deem them to be sorely in need of renovation or replacement.
 
"Now 25 years later, Crosby is physically decrepit and an eyesore. It houses students ages three to 11 in a facility meant for use by teenagers,"
 
"Conte and Morningside opened in the mid-1970s. They were built as then state-of-the-art schools featuring large elongated rectangles of open instructional space. Over almost half a century, these physical arrangements have proven to be inadequate for teaching core academic skills effectively to students, many of whom need extra services and a distraction-free environment if they are to realize their full academic potential."
 
He said  the proposal addresses a serious problem in the "economically poorest, most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse area" of the city.
 
Cameron added that these facilities have been deemed unsatisfactory and need to be replaced as part of the project to reimagine how the city can best meet the educational needs of its students.  He said it is the local government's job to move this project forward to ensure that children learn in an environment that is conducive to their thriving academically.
 
"The process of meeting this responsibility needs to begin here tonight," he said.
 
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