PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The School Committee approved a pilot tutoring program, courses, and the vocational admissions policy for Taconic High School last week.

The Career Technical Education admissions policy has undergone changes over the last several years to eliminate roadblocks for vocational education. The revised policy, which has remained the same since 2021, eliminates criteria aside from residency for acceptance.

"We have had an admissions policy for a number of years and, in 2020, the Board of Education had voted that much of the selection criteria that was being used across Massachusetts, they provided a guidance that would be removed over concerns of disproportionality and under-representation of special populations," Assistant Superintendent for College and Career Readiness Tammy Gage explained.

That year, the committee revisited the intra-district policy that required students to double apply through the deputy superintendent's office and to the CTE program. It was removed and, in 2021, the current revision was accepted.

"The School Committee approved the revision of the admissions policy removing all selection criteria, which included grades, attendance, discipline records, and recommendations following guidance from the Board of Education," Gage said.

"You may see this across the news across Massachusetts because it's still a hot topic. Our current admissions policy, if you've not had a chance to review, is essentially the elimination of all criteria with the exception that the student be a resident of Pittsfield so the citywide acceptance, any student that resides in Pittsfield has the right to apply for a seat at Taconic High School."

Under the policy, if there are more applicants than available seats, the vocational school will have a lottery to determine which students to admit, with residents accepted first.

Gage reported that all students have been accepted for the past two years.

The committee approved a continuation of the Ignite! pilot tutoring program that offers one-on-one virtual assistance for first graders. It has been going on since the fall and will run through February.

"This is one of those ones that makes you want to stand up and dance. It's really exciting," School Committee member Sara Hathaway said.

"It's one-on-one tutoring. Each child is assigned to — they don't call it a tutor they call it a friend — and they get a little bit of instruction, they're all first graders, to bring them up to grade level on reading. Apparently, the results are outstanding and the kids love it. The teachers hinted that they think it's even helping to improve attendance."

The program, which is in partnership with the One8 Foundation, is supported by a grant for five elementary schools: Conte, Crosby, Egremont, Morningside, and Stearns. At Conte, 45 students participated.

"They do this digitally through a Zoom-like platform so there's a regimented schedule for every school in those first-grade classrooms and they have 15 minutes of one-to-one instruction through the video platform in literacy skills," Superintendent Joseph Curtis explained, adding that the district has its own benchmarking to assess how students are progressing.

Hathaway reported that there is a waiting list for students and that they have to be qualified based on reading scores. The students in the program have been identified as reading below grade level based on fall FastBridge data.

There was also a first reading and approval of several pilot courses: High School Directing & Playwriting, High School Musical Theater Performance, Middle School STEM Lab, Middle School Personal Finance, and Middle School Introduction to Digital Literacy.

The personal finance course at Reid Middle School is for eighth-grade students and will serve as a platform for discovery into the fiscal and professional world, focusing on establishing a basis for sound financial decision-making. It will also cover resume writing, job searching, and hiring processes.

Vice Chair Daniel Elias pointed out that the community has been asking for a personal finance course for some time.

"I’m excited that there's gonna be a personal finance course at Reid Middle School," William Garrity said.

"I know. One of the things I think I was put a little bit pushing for back when I was a student rep and I know the student representation right now is pushing for financial literacy education in all our schools so I'm excited to see it at the middle school level."

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