CTE – William Garrity's Blog

February 28th School Committee Meeting Recaps

Posted on February 29, 2024February 29, 2024 by William Garrity

February 28th Regular Meeting Recap

Click here to view the agenda and packet information for this meeting

Click here to view the meeting recording

Restricting Virtual School Enrollment – Commonwealth Virtual Schools (CMVS) are virtual schools that serve the whole state and are approved by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Under Massachusetts State Law a school committee may “restrict enrollment of its students in commonwealth virtual schools if the total enrollment of its students in commonwealth virtual schools exceeds 1 per cent of the total enrollment in its district; provided, however, that no student enrolled in a commonwealth virtual school shall be compelled to withdraw as a result of that vote.”

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has determined based on student enrollment data reported to them on October 1st, 2023 that more than 1% of students from Pittsfield are enrolled in a CMVS. Under DESE Guidelines the School Committee must vote by March 1st if it is considering restricting student enrollment in the CMVS.

Based on this information, the School Committee voted to restrict enrollment in CMVS to 1% in a 6 – 1 vote (I opposed the motion).

Public Comment to the Pittsfield School Committee Regarding Making Taconic a Fully CTE School

Posted on January 31, 2023 by William Garrity

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.

Taconic Becoming a Fully Vocational School: How did we get here? (Part 3)

Posted on January 16, 2023January 16, 2023 by William Garrity

View part 2 of this series of blog posts here!

As I continue to write these blog posts, I am starting to realize that the presentations given out by the administration basically have a lot of the same information in it (why the district wants to have Taconic become a fully vocational school, the benefits of the CTE program, myths about the CTE program, rough timeline, etc.) but with some added information not found in previous presentations. Because of that, I’m just going to summarize all of the new information from here on out. You may view the linked presentation or video recording if you want to see what else was talked about.

The November 28th, 2022 CTE Community Information Session

On November 28th, Taconic Principal Matthew Bishop, Taconic Vice Principal for CTE Teaching and Learning Marcie Simonds, Assistant Superintendent for College and Career Readiness Tammy Gage, and Superintendent Joseph Curtis hosted a virtual CTE Community Information Session to discuss Taconic transitioning to a fully vocational school (this was a rescheduling of a meeting that was going to take place on November 10th but was canceled due to technical difficulties). The presentation covered the following additional points not discussed in previous blog posts:

Taconic Becoming a Fully Vocational School: How did we get here? (Part 2)

Posted on January 13, 2023January 16, 2023 by William Garrity

View part 1 of this series of blog posts here!

The July 20th, 2022 School Committee Meeting

On the agenda for the July 20th, 2022 School Committee meeting was a “Presentation and Discussion on Steps Needed to Make Taconic High School a Full Vocational School for the 2023-2024 School Year” (timestamp 1:30:00 – 2:42:56).

This presentation by Taconic Principal Matthew Bishop, Assistant Superintendent for College and Career Readiness Tammy Gage, and then Pittsfield High Principal Henry Duval covered the following points (note that this information was accurate as of July of 2022):

Taconic Becoming a Fully Vocational School: How did we get here? (Part 1)

Posted on January 12, 2023January 16, 2023 by William Garrity

This is the first big blog post I have done on this site, so lets see how this goes!

I have been somewhat out of the loop for the past few months on where things stand regarding Taconic’s transition to a fully vocational school. This was an issue that popped up during my tenure as a student representative, but because it came close to the end of my tenure I didn’t get to discuss it that much (even though I tried to get a discussion on having the transition start in the fall of 2022 on the agenda before I left for various reasons). And because of my busy schedule this past fall I wasn’t really able to keep up with the Pittsfield School Committee that much. But as this is an important topic and that I received word from the district that the School Committee will be voting on turning Taconic into a fully CTE school at their January 25th meeting, I think it is a really good time to delve right back in and see where we are at.

But first, lets review how we actually got to this point. I’m going to start from the March 23rd School Committee meeting as that is when the School Committee seriously started to consider transitioning Taconic to a fully vocational school (and we need somewhere to start). Though I should point out there was a presentation given on this matter at the July 14th, 2021 School Committee meeting (timestamp 39:45 – 1:38:47) which does have a little bit of background information though that information is repeated throughout future presentations.