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State Grants $600K to Improve Conte School Accountability Data
By Andy McKeever, iBerkshires Staff
01:13AM / Thursday, June 29, 2017
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Superintendent Jason McCandless informed the School Committee about the grant Wednesday night.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Staff at Conte Community School will be putting in extra hours over the next two years as it tries to turn around the school's accountability data.
 
Conte is classified as a Level 3 school, low on state measures, and the district has now received a "turnaround" grant aimed to improve the school's test scores. Pittsfield will receive $600,000 over the next two years to keep teachers longer after school to focus more closely on the instruction being provided to individual pupils.
 
"What it's funding primarily is for teachers to have an extended school day. It is not an extended school day for students, it is an extended school day for teachers so we can spend more time during the day on direct instruction to the students and have time to do grade level or multigrade level planning among the faculty," Superintendent Jason McCandless said.
 
The superintendent said he's heard a lot of talk about the state "taking over" Conte School and he refuted those allegations. However, school and district administrators have been working closely with staff at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for about a year now.
 
"Conte is not being taken over by the state," McCandless said. "The last thing the commonwealth and DESE want to do is take over schools."
 
But, the school hasn't been progressing as fast as state officials would like. The state is now sending an infusion of money to implement the longer school days for teachers, creating more time for the staff to collaboratively gameplan educational strategies for individual students. 
 
"It is really taking schools that state looks at and says 'you just aren't making the growth in the amount of time we need to see.' The state's vision is that an infusion of a good deal of money that allows us to do some of the things we know are going to be good for kids and good for instruction can move schools out of level 3 and into level 2," McCandless said.
 
The grant also includes some teacher training programs both this summer and next. Deputy Superintendent Joseph Curtis added that of all of the grants the state scored, Conte's topped the list. 
 
School Committee member Daniel Elias said the school community itself has already changed for the better more recently. He said families and parents are much more supportive of the school and staff than in the past.
 
"There is a tremendous buy-in from them. They've turned a corner," Elias said.
 
McCandless said when he first came to the district, Conte had less than 300 students because "families had really started to check out from wanting to be in that school." But that's turned around and now school events are packed, and enrollment is more than 400. 
 
"That community supports its school and its school supports its community," McCandless said.
 
The grant is hoped to continue that momentum and raise up the school's academic achievement and growth in the state's accountability system.
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