PITTSFIELD — A drop in enrollment in city schools could cost the Pittsfield Public Schools as much as $5 million in state aid.

That was the estimated impact given by interim Superintendent Latifah Phillips on Wednesday night during a meeting of the School Committee.

District enrollment is down 204 students, according to the data, which is provided as of Oct. 1 as required by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. That breaks down to 44 students at its high schools, 58 at its middle schools and 108 at its elementary schools.

Overall, enrollment as of Oct. 1 sat at 4,822 students. It was 5,026 students on Oct. 1, 2024; 4,960 on Oct. 1, 2023; 5,015 on Oct. 1, 2022; and 5,355 on Oct. 1, 2021.

Phillips also provided updated school choice numbers, which show the city welcomed 66 students from neighboring towns this year and saw 679 students — 22 more than last year — leave daily for surrounding districts, such as Lenox, Central Berkshire and Mount Greylock.

The district's $86.9 million budget for fiscal 2026, which was adopted last May, was expected to be funded by an $18 million city contribution and $68.45 million in state Chapter 70 funds. The impact of potentially losing an estimated $5 million of that aid wasn't immediately known.

The potential impact on state Chapter 70 aid, Phillips said after the meeting, reflects several potential factors:

• The overall reduced enrollment as Chapter 70 dollars are distributed based on population;

• The net loss loss of 616 students at $5,000 per pupil in school choice funding;

• And the possibility that the city will lose the extra aid it has received for two years from having 70 percent or more of its student population classified as low income.

What’s drawing students to the city? Assistant Superintendent Tammy Gage noted the CTE program at Taconic, which currently has more than 50 students from outside the district, already has 15 more applications for enrollment in 2026-27. With graduations and departures factored in, that brings the school above 60 out-of-district students next year, Gage said.

But the departures led School Committee member Sarah Muil to ask Phillips if the district can survey outbound families and get a better understanding of the reasons families opt out.

Phillips said the district “definitely can,” and added “I’m hopeful with our restructuring and sharing more about the good news in our district and changes on the horizon, we can bring families back into our district.”

Muil is a member of the Middle School Restructuring Committee that formulated the plan now expected to be put in motion for the 2026-27 school year. It envisions a citywide fifth and sixth grade school at Herberg and a citywide seventh and eighth grade school at Reid.

While the restructuring is first and foremost intended to assure equitable education opportunities for middle school students across the city, it’s also a response to families utilizing school choice before and during the middle school years.

Phillips also offered an update on transportation planning, and reported that potential alternatives to the plan laid out last month have been tried, and largely did not work.

The committee sought alternate plans after hearing that the elementary school schedule would be extended to 3:40 p.m. Members had raised concerns that the city’s youngest students would be getting off the bus in the dark during the winter months.

Justin Bolio, who is coordinating the middle school restructuring project for the Pittsfield Public Schools, explains why a number of alternative transportation ideas for the project would lead to students spending nearly an hour per bus ride and therefore would not work.

The most adventurous of those proposals was flip-flopping the schedule so that elementary school students would start their day second, just after 8 a.m., and middle school students delivered last, with class starting after 9 a.m. But Justin Bolio, who is coordinating the project, explained why that won’t work: The elementary school run ends at eight locations across the city.

He said getting those buses from locations such as Capeless and Stearns to the start of their middle school runs, and then completing those runs to a pair of citywide locations, would assure a bus run of an hour or more — without accounting for traffic or construction.

Phillips also reported that the Herberg Parent Teacher Organization, led by former School Committee member Donna Belair, has suggested raising funds to organize transition activities for incoming Herberg students over the summer, so kids from across the city can get to know each other before class starts in the fall.

“I thought that was a wonderful idea,” Phillips said, and she said she’ll explore making that happen for incoming seventh and eighth graders at Reid as well.