Additional HR Staff, Streamlined Investigations Recommended for Pittsfield Schools
PITTSFIELD, Mass.—A consultant recommended that the Pittsfield Public Schools enhance its human resources supports after a year of several staff investigations.
On Wednesday, the School Committee received a presentation from the Collins Center for Public Management, which was contracted to review the district's HR, hiring, and retention processes.
"A report with this kind of detail is, I think, what was needed at the outset," Chair William Cameron said.
"And now we have to use the recommendations you're making and put them into effect on a schedule that we can accommodate and that will improve the way we operate."
Three Pittsfield High School administrators and two teachers, past and present, were investigated by Bulkley Richardson and Gelinas LLP for a range of allegations that surfaced or re-surfaced at the end of 2024 after Pittsfield High's former dean of students, Lavante Wiggins, was arrested and charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office for allegedly conspiring to traffic large quantities of cocaine in Western Massachusetts.
The Collins Center, established by the Commonwealth in 2008, aims to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, governance, responsiveness, and accountability of public sector organizations. It has completed more than 1,200 projects across the state, including in Pittsfield.
The team conducted 25 interviews with human resource staff, district leaders, school leaders, and hiring managers, conducted a survey, and reviewed the district's sample documents and related data.
They made several recommendations to enhance HR practices, examining the department's roles and responsibilities, as well as the district's processes for recruitment, personnel investigation, interviewing, and hiring.
One strong recommendation? Another staff member.
"We heard consistently from people we interviewed that the HR department is understaffed. We have multiple suggestions for how to remedy that, but we believe strongly that there needs to be another staff member in the HR department," explained Marie Altieri, of the Collins Center.
"We also believe that improvements in recruitment and retention could save money in other areas of the budget that could help to fund a new position. We also believe that there are functions being handled by the HR department that are normally handled by other staff members in most school districts. One example of this is the handling of public records requests."
It was recommended that building-level administrators be trained to conduct investigations so that the HR department can partner with them, as needed, and to implement progressive discipline so that issues are dealt with "immediately, fairly, and effectively."
"While we did not conduct or review the specific investigations that were completed in the district last year, we learned that there were examples of staff being placed on administrative leave for extended periods of time without expedient resolution," Altieri explained.
"With additional training of school and district administrators, we believe that the number of investigations and the length of time they take could be reduced."
It was also recommended that PPS institute a policy for reference checking that requires administrators to conduct more in-depth calls to applicants' former supervisors.
"We'd like to close by stating that we enjoyed our time at Pittsfield, that they have an incredibly dedicated team who is focused on student success, and we enjoyed it, and we found it to be an honor to work with all of those high-quality people," concluded team member Monica Visco.
Cameron clarified that there is a full, detailed report that can be provided to anyone of interest.
"This is a contract that is between the Pittsfield public schools that is under the leadership of the superintendent, and the Collins Center," he said, explaining that applying the recommendations would likely be an administrative function with the School Committee providing support.
"…We do have a Personnel Subcommittee of the School Committee, which I think could be helpful."
Superintendent Latifah Philips observed a lot of great suggestions in the report, and the administration will identify short-term solutions that can be put into place, recognizing that some may need to be discussed at budget time because of cost.
"Having gone through my first hiring season, I would say we absolutely are committed to recruiting, recruiting early, retaining, supporting, really understanding which of our staff are unlicensed or on waivers but have a commitment to staying in the classroom, and figuring out a way to provide them support so that they can continue in our system, so that we can reduce the percentage of turnover and of unprepared teachers," she said.
"So that is a high priority for us."
She reported that they are also keeping a spreadsheet of investigations to understand how long they take to conduct and the gravity of problems the district is seeing.
Committee member Sara Hathaway was glad to see additional HR supports suggested, recalling when she brought up the department's staffing needs during budget deliberations.
"The report clearly indicates one of our areas for focus is investigations. We would put a person on leave for whatever reason, usually paid leave, and then have to hire a sub to cover that position, so we're paying two people, and those investigations can drag on for long periods of time," she said.
"If we had more resources in the HR department, perhaps those investigations would be more expeditious, and we wouldn't have that cost of the two positions. So it was a sort of penny-wise, pound-foolish situation where we've tried to keep our overhead low by not hiring administrators, but in fact, we are shelling out money for these investigation situations."
School Committee member William Garrity agreed that the district needs more HR resources.
"I do think it would be a good idea to move the record public records requests out of HR into another department. I think that just makes more sense," he said.
"HR can focus on HR stuff, and someone who has that experience in public records requests can do the public records request side, because it can get complicated pretty quickly."
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