PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The school district is considering extending the Pittsfield Public Virtual Academy (PPVA) beyond COVID-19 times.

Superintendent Joseph Curtis presented the academy proposal to the School Committee on Wednesday. The original proposal would employ 74 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff members, remotely educate 400 to 500 K-12 students, and cost around $6.9 million.

The committee supported the idea but agreed that the logistics be worked out before any formal motions are made. Members of the committee supported scaling down the project to reach fewer students and have less of a financial impact.

Curtis clarified that there are smaller models drafted for the academy.

There was no vote on the proposal at the meeting but the committee is set to vote on it by July 6.

"This is definitely something that the school committee should be exploring," Mayor Linda Tyer said. "I think that this is making our public schools offer a unique alternative to kids and families who might need this who have succeeded in this type of virtual academy. I'm a little surprised, though, that the numbers you gave us anticipate an enrollment of four or 500 with a price tag of nearly $7 million, I can't imagine that we'd have four or 500 students enrolling."

Around this time last year, Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley indicated that schools across the commonwealth had to offer a remote option to students and families because of the pandemic. At the end of the school year from March to June, Pittsfield Public Schools had an instruction model that Curtis described as "for all intensive purposes, really task completion."

"We decided that the best way to reach our students was to offer a virtual experience full time that was taught by our teachers," he said. "So we wanted to offer the virtual academy to really offer our medically compromised students and staff a place to work and learn as we made our way through the pandemic. Keeping that in mind, and you know that the virtual academy has been in operation during this school year, we now have to consider what is next."

In the state of Massachusetts, there are three types of virtual schools: a statewide virtual school that offers enrollment to any student within the state, a collaborative or multi-district virtual school that allows students from nearby cities to attend, and a single-district virtual school.

Curtis indicated that a single district virtual school would work best for Pittsfield. With this model, students from surrounding districts outside of Pittsfield would not be able to attend.

He asked virtual academy Principal Carl Tillona and Deputy Superintendent Henry Duval to submit an application for the academy in early may to ensure that they "keep the door open" have an opportunity for conversation with the committee and broader community.

By June 4, the School Department will provide Chairwoman Katherine Yon with feedback related to the application including comments and adjustments that need to be considered.

If the committee chooses to move forward, the application will be resubmitted with any alterations made and go through another review process with a final vote from the School Committee due by July 6.

In the 2021 school year, the PPVA was staffed with roughly 40 FTEs and cost $3.7 million with salaries and benefits. There are currently 537 K-12 students enrolled and at one point in time, there were slightly more than 600.

"Now I can say that this year, we did have difficulty and I'm sure as you watch the postings throughout the year, we were trying to hire additional staff this school year because of some of the class sizes particularly in elementary school, or rather large," Curtis explained.

"But despite our best attempts, we could not hire additional staff. So when we give you this snapshot of 40 FTEs, please know that we were seeking to have additional staff members to bring our class sizes down to a more traditional size that we carry in our brick and mortar schools."

Curtis was realistic in identifying some possible struggles with a permanent virtual academy.  Some considerations mentioned were securing adequate staffing, enrollment, and funding.

He said using Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) III funds — which support the safe reopening of schools while meeting students' academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic — would be considered but sustainability past fiscal 2024 would be difficult. 

One benefit that Curtis mentioned would be the recruitment of homeschooled families into the PPVA.  Currently, there are roughly 38 homeschooled families in the district.

Many family members of students attending the current virtual academy called into the meeting to voice support for the proposal.

"I found the presentations made this evening during the public participation portion to be heartfelt, and I say the same thing about the emails that we received where people are thought to speak were to write plainly are strongly supportive of this idea," Committee member William Cameron said. "And if their kids are succeeding in this format, then it's something that we need to give serious consideration to."

Cameron had two large concerns about the idea: sustainability and the effect it may have on in-person education.

Tyer had concerns about the nearly $7 million price tag on the proposal.

"We have two other staffing models that are smaller in size, and obviously would serve fewer students. So you can imagine because we're not sure of that commitment," Curtis replied.

"Would do we truly have four to 500? I would dare say, that might be a stretch. Could we have half of that? I would say absolutely. One hundred and fifty to 200 students? Absolutely. Because we might attract current homeschool families, we might attract people that are going to tech right now and that's certainly a more realistic number, but we wanted to give the committee a real opportunity to see the cost of this if we did have that enrollment."

Tyer also pointed out the recent discussions on the City Council around keeping kids in the Pittsfield Public Schools and suggested that this may be an attractive option to offer.  

A virtual academy would also offer more equity to students, she said, especially those with emotional or health issues.

"There's just so much happening virtually now, you can get your master's degree virtually now, you can go to university online, people working from home," she added. "So I think that offering it as part of our public school offering is not that farfetched and I actually think it's going to position us to be offering something unique, that no other districts in the county or really region offers."  

Committee member Alison McGee said the educators and administrators should make sure the PPVA is considered as part of the district, making sure that it is looked at as a component of the educational system and meshes well with other specialized programs that are offered.

In closing, Curtis suggested that if the committee decides to move forward with the virtual academy, they consider it to be a permanent addition and not a year-long pilot for students' consistency.

He also brought light to the cost savings of a virtual academy such as building and maintenance costs and cafeteria food services.

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