Pittsfield Schools See Better Building Utilization, Continued Choice Outs
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Students return to school in two weeks; Pittsfield will have one less elementary school and around 100 fewer students.
The School Committee was updated on enrollment for the 2026-2027 academic year during last week's regular meeting.
At this time, the Pittsfield Public Schools had 4,586 students, compared to 4,682 at the end of the 2025-2026 school year. Superintendent Latifah Phillips said this has been the district's trend for years and is not surprising.
"Across all of these grade levels, we have a decrease. I believe of about 80-90 students. I think it's at eighth grade that we're going to look into and make sure that our data is accurate," she said to the School Committee last week.
"But otherwise, the enrollment is following the trends that we have expected in probably the last decade."
With this school year comes the closure of Morningside Community School and the middle school restructuring that sends Grades 5-6 to Herberg Middle School and Grades 7-8 to Reid Middle School.
Fifth grade enrollment was subtracted from last year's elementary enrollment, and these reflect the reassignment of Morningside students to Allendale, Capeless, Egremont, and Williams.
Phillips pointed out that this process has increased the use of school buildings, as underutilized buildings were one of the concerns that led to institutional changes.
"You'll see here that most of our school buildings this year have increased their utilization," she said.
Allendale's enrollment is increasing from 184 students before summer to around 268, and Williams will see significantly more students, from 205 to 332 students. Capeless will increase from 163 students to more than 200.
The Crosby Academy has the same enrollment and will continue to serve kindergarten through fifth grade, a decision made to ensure that the current structure and programming has continuity.
There are about 338 students in fifth grade, up from 327, and 305 students in sixth grade, up from 296. These students will attend Herberg Middle School
Attending Reid Middle School will be around 303 seventh graders, up from 286. The eighth grade population, which the administration is double-checking, saw a significant decrease from 370 students at the end of the school year to around 291 signed up for the fall.
Phillips noted that there are withdrawals and changes every day, so the data may look different the next time it is presented.
"I'm not going to interpret the eighth grade enrollment. That's something that we will look into between now and the beginning of the school year," she said.
"One, to ensure that our data is accurate, and two, just to have a better understanding of what would have caused our eighth grade population to have this level of decrease, especially considering that our fifth, sixth, and seventh grade had slight increases."
Herberg's enrollment will go from 558 students at the end of the last school year to about 636 students in the fall, and Reid's population will increase from 382 students to about 587.
Pittsfield High School is projected to have about 679 students in the fall, down from 699, and Taconic High School is expected to have 806 students, up from 789.
At the prior School Committee meeting, the administration was asked to provide data on school choice trends. Since 2017, there has been a consistent, gradual increase of students leaving the district, the last couple of years being over 600 students.
Phillips said it has not been a clear trend.
"When we looked at the age of students who are choosing out, there really was no pattern. Students were leaving at every age group, and it's not clear why someone would leave at first grade or second grade or fifth grade. They leave at different grades, and so that's something for us to study," she reported.
"… I'm more accustomed to students making a choice, families making a choice at kindergarten to start elementary somewhere else, maybe transitioning to start middle school somewhere else, start high school somewhere else. This trend of choosing out at any given grade — it's not clear to me why that's happening."
PPS receives $5,000 for every student that transfers in, and there were about 70 this past year.
Assistant Superintendent for Business and Finance Bonnie Howland reported that the district has the second highest number of students choosing out, second to Springfield. This impacts PPS financially.
While looking at why people are leaving, Phillips said the district is going to focus on strengthening its academic programming and increasing positive messaging.
"And then I think that over time that will bring families back or keep families here," she said.
"Reversing that trend will not be quick. It won't be easy, and reversing that trend also has other implications for the district. Right now we have a really strong utilization and student enrollment in our different buildings, both at the middle schools, the high school, and the elementary schools, so bringing students back would lead us into another conversation around facilities."
Tags: enrollment, Pittsfield Public Schools,
