Good evening members of the Pittsfield School Committee,
I’m William Garrity, Taconic Class of 22 alumni, and former student representative to the school committee, and I’m here tonight regarding transitioning Taconic to a fully CTE school.
I am in full support of this proposal, it just makes sense for the district. This proposal will allow for more students to experience the wonders of the rigorous CTE program at Taconic, without having to limit enrollment and implement a lottery which will limit which Pittsfield students will get in. It will also help to attract students from outside the district to Taconic, which will allow for more students to be a part of this great educational opportunity while also giving our district more tuition funds from other school districts in the area. Simply put, it just makes sense for the district moving forward and not starting this transition now will cause more problems down the road.
Saying that, I do have two concerns that need to be addressed moving forward:
First – PHS Needs to Be Renovated: This has been brought up numerous times by Mr. Elias but simply put PHS needs to be renovated in some way. We are now going to be shifting more students over to PHS, and to ensure they receive the same quality education as Taconic students PHS needs a facelift. I encourage you all to expedite the process of getting PHS the renovations it needs.
Second – There needs to be concrete plan to serve the non-CTE population at Taconic during this transition: I have been following this process for quite some time now and I have seen concrete plans for how Taconic CTE students are going to be served during the transition with their programming, and I have seen plans for how PHS students are going to be served during this transition with their new pathway/cluster focused programming. But I have yet to see any concrete plan on how non-CTE students at Taconic are going to be served during this transition, which is the greatest concern of mine.
The non-CTE population is going to start declining rapidly during the transition. Right now there are around 241 non-CTE students. In the first year of the transition that number will go down to 159, second year going down to 103, and in the third year going down to 45 students. This is going to be a problem to be able to serve these students adequately, especially since I have not seen a concrete plan on how this cohort of students are going to receive elective course offerings with such a small number of students.
Maybe an idea could be having these students take part in electives inside all of the CTE programs without having them be in CTE, or partnering with BCC to provide early college experiences to these students. But there needs to be a concrete plan. I would hate to see these students feel like “second-class” students compared to their CTE peers at Taconic and even their peers at PHS. These students do not deserve that, they deserve a quality education like their other peers in the district.
I strongly urge the Taconic administration to come up with a concrete plan for how to serve these students, and to present this plan at a school committee meeting by the end of this school year.
Thank you.