Pittsfield School Building Needs Panel Looks to Restructuring
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Superintendent of Schools Joseph Curtis wants to extend the districtwide restructuring study's request for quotes (RFQ) timeline after garnering no response.
He reported this at the second reconvened meeting of the School Building Needs Commission last week. There was not a quorum and the panel was unable to vote on a new RFQ but members were given an update on the process.
"We did cancel the last meeting because we had every anticipation of providing an update on the number of proposals that were submitted based on the RFQ that I overviewed in our last meeting," Curtis said.
"Unfortunately, we did not have any proposals submitted so we began communication."
The district has reached out to the 20 contractors who solicited the proposal and asked why they chose not to make a submission. Each person who was consulted said the timeline was too aggressive to perform the number of services the district needs before it submits a statement of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority.
Separating the educational study portion of the RFQ from the facilities was considered but the contractors ultimately supported keeping it together, said Curtis.
"All in all, after talking with those who requested, we decided to proceed with posting an updated RFQ. We're now titling it the 'Pittsfield Public Schools Master Plan.' We have provided different numbers so that the original contractors that sought the proposal won't get confused thinking that it's the same proposal just slightly retooled," he explained.
"Unfortunately, the new timeline really stretches to roughly January of 2024. So predominantly, the entire next school year is what we receive feedback on in receiving the information from the study that we're seeking, which would put us back on track in possibly submitting a statement of interest in April of 2024."
He pointed out that there could be potential policy changes that come out of the process for the school committee to vote on.
The commission reconvened in September after not meeting for several years. The city has $200,000 to do a restructuring study of the school district that addresses its physical and general structure.
There has been a lot of discussion about the district's community schools Morningside and Conte, Curtis reported, and Pittsfield High School.
The RFQ has multiple phases: to establish goals and a project schedule; student enrollment projections and student facilities to serve based on current enrollment; comprehensive facility assessment of the city’s four unrenovated schools and facilities master plan of the remaining schools; preparing a draft and final reports; and community presentation.
The process is aimed to be year-long and will ultimately be voted on by the City Council. The city would like it to be very public and generate a good amount of feedback.
Possible recommendations that could come out of the study are redistricting, downsizing brick-and-mortar sites, and restructuring grade spans.
The district has a total of 15 sites including eight elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools and enrollment has dropped over the years.
In January, the School Committee is set to vote on Taconic High School becoming solely vocational.
If the panel is in favor, Taconic will only accept Career Technical Education (CTE) students in the fall of 2023 and, by the fall of 2027, will be all vocational. Any non-CTE students would go to Pittsfield High School, changing the current structure that decides a student's high school by where they went to middle school if they don't exercise school choice.
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