PITTSFIELD — Now that the School Committee has given the Pittsfield Public Schools’ middle school restructuring the green light to proceed, there's a lot of work to be done — and concerns to address.

And several of those concerns, as expressed Wednesday night, came not from School Committee members, district officials or educators, but from the parents whose children may attend a fifth and sixth grade Herberg Middle School or a seventh and eighth grade Reid Middle School next year.

The work that lies ahead, according to a project timeline shared with the School Committee, includes:

• Finalizing the transportation and bell schedules.

• Negotiations with labor unions — including teachers, administrators, support staff, paraprofessionals, bus drivers and food service workers — on changes in working conditions, including workday hours.

• Programming open houses and events for staff, families and students to build community and school spirit.

• Setting a staffing plan, making sure the proper teaching licenses are in place to cover humanities and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) courses.

• Arranging for the move, including building and furniture needs.

One of the many things that still needs to be finalized in the middle school restructuring plan is transportation and school start and end schedules.

Interim Superintendent Latifah Phillips said the administration will continue to work as hard as possible to plan the transition from grade 6-8 middle schools with geographic districts to citywide middle schools.

“This is a risk for us," she told the School Committee on Wednesday night. "We're taking a risk as well to put something on the table better for our students, many students who don't have advocates for their circumstances.”

Moving forward now, she said, helps the schools gain the means to tailor interventions for students falling behind, balance classrooms with social and economic diversity in mind, and curate teaching staffs with a more balanced mix of experienced and new teachers.

“We just have to ask ourselves which outweighs the other: the loss or the gain? Because we're working toward the gain and acknowledging the loss,” Phillips said.

Several parents who addressed the committee Wednesday night were concerned that more attention seems to be focused on logistics than curriculum and school environment. While all said they support the concept, they remain worried that the district is rushing.

“As parents, we worry that in order to push this through, the district may solve for busses and contracts first and curriculum, school climate and the daily student experience will be what falls to the wayside,” Danielle Giulian said.

Giulian said the proposal needs "a clear plan" for academic continuity and a school environment "that encourages students to show up, feel safe and succeed.”

Danielle Giulian, a Pittsfield parent, spoke at the School Committee meeting on Wednesday night. "On behalf of the many families who share these concerns, please do not rush this,” she said.

“These aren't questions rooted in resistance. They're rooted in love, responsibility and a deep belief that our children deserve the very best version of this plan," she said. "So on behalf of the many families who share these concerns, please do not rush this.”

Maureen Garner also had questions about the district's foundational challenges.

“How will this proposal actually address the real issues our district is facing?" asked Maureen Garner, a Pittsfield parent, at the School Committee meeting on Wednesday.

“How will this proposal actually address the real issues our district is facing? How will it improve attendance?" she asked. "How will it reduce the behavioral problems we're seeing across the schools? How will it solve the low staffing levels, the difficulty of hiring certified teachers and the ongoing instability?"

However, some parents addressing the committee urged it to keep moving ahead with the plan.

Lindsay Ciepiela’s middle school-aged son attends Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School. But after a recent meeting of the restructuring advisory committee, she and her son got to talking in the car.

“And I just wanted to share with the committee that in our family there is interest in returning back to the district if this restructuring moves through,” she said.

Knesset Israel Rabbi David Weiner, a member of the middle school restructuring committee, said waiting another year would shortchange another cohort of students without much gain in return.

“We ought to remember that our current approach to the middle grades is not equitable. ... Not moving forward will perpetuate the status quo that no one finds acceptable,” he said. “On the other hand, our thoughtfully developed plan … will help set the stage for stronger education system, and most importantly, for better educated young people.”

Ultimately, the School Committee voted 6-1, allowing Phillips and the administration to move forward.

Mayor Peter Marchetti, who backs the restructuring, was the lone no vote, saying he needed more assurances to support the timeline. But Marchetti’s bid to move the go/no-go deadline to February failed on a 5-2 vote, with Vice Chair Daniel Elias joining him in supporting that amendment.

Mayor Peter Marchetti explains his position as the only "no" vote on moving forward with the plan to restructure the city’s middle schools for the 2026-27 school year at Wednesday’s school committee meeting. “Can you tell me that you're 1,000 percent confident where we are today, that we can have an awesome implementation? Because I believe the answer to that question is 'no,'" he said.

Making a fundamental change at the middle school level, supporters say, is the only way to bring about long-sought improvements at schools that have faced challenges and low state accountability scores. It’s hoped that, in turn, would help reverse an exodus of families who are pursuing school choice, charter schools and parochial schools at the middle school levels over concerns about academic performance and problem student behaviors.

In wanting to push the decision deadline forward to February, Marchetti said he simply wasn’t confident that the schools can pull off the change. Waiting until February, he said, would give the next School Committee more answers with which to make an informed decision.

“Can you tell me that you're 1,000 percent confident where we are today, that we can have an awesome implementation? Because I believe the answer to that question is 'no,'" he said. "It's why, if this goes to a vote tonight, I vote no because we're not in a place to assure folks that we can run it properly.”

Committee member Diana Belair — like Sara Hathaway, Dominick Sacco, William Cameron and William Garrity, taking part in what is likely her final School Committee meeting — said the project should move forward so parents can get clarity on where their kids are heading next year.

“I propose that instead, we determine tonight whether we're on a good track to say yes, we are going forward unless some catastrophe happens and we can't make our goals, or we are not moving forward at a fast enough pace,” Belair said. “I don't think that we can say we're not deciding anything now … because it's already driving me nuts to think about it.”

Marchetti and Elias — the only two committee members who will continue serving in January — expressed the most concern over whether the district can pull off such a significant paradigm shift by September.

They pointed to punch list items that remain open questions: School and bus schedules, agreements with the district’s labor unions, and getting faculty, especially fifth grade teachers, to volunteer for the new assignment rather than being assigned.

One of those hurdles is a big one: Work conditions, such as start and end times for classes, which have to change to accommodate transportation, are laid out in collective bargaining agreements between the schools and the labor unions representing teachers, administrators and professionals. Those changes can’t be dictated unilaterally; they must be bargained.

Those talks have yet to begin, United Educators of Pittsfield President Jeanne Lemmond said Wednesday night.

But the seemingly simple matter of deciding when the bell rings, and for whom, has to be decided in order to write contract proposals adjusting the workday. To that end, Phillips said the transportation team is willing to work over the holiday vacation to find more efficiencies in bus routes now projected running 45 minutes.

There’s also what Marchetti called an “outside the box proposal” to consider: Flipping the middle school and elementary schedules so the elementary day starts earlier and the middle school day starts and ends last. That proposal came from Lemmond.

A survey taken by the district gauging interest in middle school positions showed that of 34 fifth and sixth grade teachers who replied, 17 “strongly agree” on working at the fifth and sixth grade campus, five were “agree,” six were “disagree” and six were "strongly disagree.”

The district projects it needs eight humanities teachers and eight STEM teachers per grade level for the fifth and sixth grade building.

Interest was stronger at the seventh and eighth grade level: Out of 25 respondents, 20 said they “strongly agree” with teaching at a grades 7-8 school.

Phillips said a fourth and fifth grade teacher reached out to her Wednesday with concerns about the future.

“And the teacher was wondering, ‘What will happen to me? Where will I go? And I love teaching fifth grade.’ And she talked about joy,” Phillips said. “I appreciated her sharing this with me, because that's what we want for all of our teachers — to have that joy."

But as the committee wrestled with whether to delay its decision to February or March, Phillips pointed out that much was hinging on getting the go-ahead to start pursuing staff for the buildings.

She also said she understands that for many city parents, the lack of detailed information about what’s next is unsettling.

“We're human. I completely expect that parents would say, ‘You know, I'm in a very stable school right now. You can't tell me who's going to be my teacher. You can't tell me who's going to be my classmates,’” Phillips said. She then pointed out that scenario isn't true for every school in the district, but rather is reflective of those in smaller, stable schools.

“We do have planning still to do," she added. "I wouldn't say we're behind, but we stay accelerated. But the questions that want to be answered are questions that even if we waited a year, even a year from now, I can't tell you what time your exact bus stop is going to be, because the population will change next year."