Pittsfield Decides Taconic Vocational Status Next Week
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Is Taconic a traditional high school or a vocational one? The School Committee will decide next week.
On Wednesday, Jan. 25, the committee will determine a proposal to start the school's transition to a solely vocational institution.
If approved, Taconic will only accept Career Technical Education (CTE) students in the fall of 2023 and, by the fall of 2027, will be all vocational.
All non-CTE students would attend Pittsfield High School regardless of the middle school they went to.
This conversation started around two years and an official recommendation was made last year. It is fueled by a growing demand for vocational education at Taconic that is outnumbering non-CTE students.
It's not unexpected -- the school had been hoping for this since the $120 million facility was unveiled in 2018.
Over the past four years, Taconic has increased its vocational enrollment by more than 300, with almost 600 CTE students and around 200 non-CTE for this school year.
Intradistrict transfers were eliminated in the last school year and enrollments soared, though it did not eliminate the space issue that led to this proposal.
Traditionally, students who went to Herberg Middle School moved on to PHS and those from Reid Middle School went to Taconic.
With one all-vocational high school, students will go to their designated middle schools and then be directed to one of the high schools based on their desired educational path.
District leaders have said that this will allow PHS students to have more scheduling choices and will free up more CTE slots at Taconic.
Preliminary conversations about the change involved debunking myths about vocational education and broadening post-high school options for students.
Administrators highlighted the value of a CTE in education, as it can provide academic knowledge and real-world skills and can easily translate into the job market.
It was reported that 100 percent of 2020 and 2021 CTE graduates entered employment, advanced training, the military, or college. These outcomes were vetted by U.S. Department of Labor wage records and higher education admissions data.
In November 2022, Superintendent Joseph Curtis said that there has not been an abundance of feedback about the possible change despite having several community outreach events, a couple of radio shows, and discussions in public meetings.
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