PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Pittsfield High Principal Matthew Bishop asked the School Committee for what seemed to be a simple request — windows that close.

 

"Not all of our windows close. Some of them are off track. So on nights like this, you'll have a little bit of snow inside," Bishop told the committee early Wednesday at the start of its daylong budget hearing.

 

The thought surprised the School Committee because it seemed like a no-brainer. Of course, the school shouldn't keep its windows open at all hours.

 

"This has got to be on the top of the list," School Committee member Anthony Riello said.

 

But as the afternoon wore on, one theme became clear. The city has done a terrible job at maintaining the school buildings and fixing them will be a costly endeavor.

 

While Bishop can't close his windows because the mechanisms are broken, Egremont Principal Judy Rush says she can't close the windows in one section because of a lingering stench.

 

"There are fans to blow the odor away from the building. There are windows open in the building so the students don't really smell the odor," Rush told the School Committee, adding that she and other school staff experience headaches and allergies when they enter that portion of the building after it's been closed for a period of time.

 

Rush has been working with the Health Department and the Maintenance Department to figure out the problem but in 15 years, it hasn't been solved.

 

"It may be something that requires a capital request in order to fully address this," Assistant Superintendent for Business and Finance Kristen Behnke said.

 

The theme of building inadequacies permeated through 10 of 12 school budgets as principal after principal addressed the committee on Wednesday.

 

This year, Superintendent Jason McCandless brought the School Committee into the ground level of the budgeting and capital request process. Instead of him fielding principals' requests, they presented their wish lists to the committee directly.

 

iBerkshires attended the session and will present that wish list through a series of three stories — each one focusing on a different area. One of the most notable themes is the condition of the city buildings.

 

"It is what happens when you Band-Aid major things that need major attention. There are things you can chip away at and there are things you have to suck up and do it," said McCandless about the number of issues presented. "We're working very hard to be the administration that actually solves some of these long-term problems." 

 

McCandless says the city's Maintenance Department needs to perform somewhere between $5 million and $10 million worth of work each year but the needs are far from met, leaving a big backlog of items to be addressed. 

 

"When we talk about maintenance, something is not going well," Chairwoman Katherine Yon said. "I believe we've dug ourselves in a hole that we can't dig ourselves out. These are the same things year after year."

 

Crosby Elementary School, built in 1963, has one of the longest lists of requests. Principal Donna Baker says the heating system hasn't been updated since the school was built. Half the building is too hot; the other half, too cold. Currently, only one of the two boilers is working. 

 

Crosby was supposed to be part of a renovation project a decade ago that was ultimately pulled off the table. The classrooms have their original single-pane windows, the intercom system is on the fritz, and the bathrooms and blinds have never been changed. And every summer, the school shuts down for a period of time to work on replacing asbestos tiles. 

 

"It's an old building. It is well loved, our custodians do a great job taking care of it, but it certainly needs some work," Baker said.

 

Baker says her request for capital repairs is the same every year — she just changes the order the items are presented. Behnke says a number of those items have been on the maintenance list since 2003. 

 

The condition of the building led Mayor Linda Tyer to ask, "What have we taken care of?"

 

"You could cry when you look at the facilities needs. Our students deserve better," Yon said.

 

Morningside Elementary School Principal Jennifer Stokes says the ceiling tiles in her building have blackened over time. The carpeting, filled with everything a young child can carry in on his feet, is 40 years old. There are holes in the walls. And, she, too, has windows that leak when it rains. Her phones go dead in mid-conversation. The paving on Burbank Street is cracking. Not all of the clocks work.

 

"Morningside's building is old and has lots and lots of needs," Stokes said.

 

Allendale Elementary School has only two working clocks. And Principal Brenda Kelley is hoping to replace the chalkboards with white boards to use brand-new equipment the school bought with a grant.

 

"I would definitely move clocks to the top of the list," Riello said.

 

Bishop says PHS needs more white boards as well and that 75 percent of the house lights in the auditorium are out. In a mock apartment room for those who need to learn life skills, the oven and half of the burners don't work. The school doesn't have a language lab for those taking Advanced Placement foreign languages and have to be transported to Taconic High School to use the equipment there. The bathrooms haven't been repaired since the 1970s and has broken doors and stalls that don't lock.

 

McCandless added that the heating system at PHS nearly forced its closure for two days last week when it was only pumping out enough to heat a third of the building. The landlocked high school could also use some more parking and Bishop asked that some pine trees on Appleton Avenue be taken down to provide diagonal parking. 

 

"It is sad to see the structure," School Committee member Daniel Elias said, adding that for years capital requests were ignored because there was an ongoing debate about whether or not PHS would be included in a new building project. "We kept putting it off."

 

The middle school principals reported similar issues. Herberg Middle School Principal Gina Coleman has been asking for interior doors connecting the science rooms because there is only one egress in that part of the building. She also wants swipe card access to the cafeteria doors. 

 

"Time has taken its toll on our gymnasium floors," Coleman said. "It is not just our 630 kids' foot wear, it is thousands of kids."

 

She, too, could use some more parking and would like a dirt area near the basketball courts paved to eliminate pooling of water and mud being tracked into the building. The main parking lot needs drainage work and the sound system for the auditorium isn't in the right location.

 

Reid Principal Linda Whitacre can't even find new bulbs for the lighting the auditorium because the system is so old. Handicapped parking is a football field away from the entrance. The kitchen floors are slippery, a grease trap is constantly clogging, the bleachers are falling apart, and the gym floor needs sanding. 

At Conte Community School, Principal Kerry Light's biggest ask is to replace the carpeting with tile on the first floor — carpeting that's never been replaced.

She doesn't have issues with windows not closing, but rather teachers can't open windows because there are no screens on many of them. The outside doors are drafty because there isn't proper weather stripping. There are more than a dozen broken windows. 

And the pavement is cracking at the entrance, "right as you come in it is very uneven. It is very unsafe and we've actually already had staff who have fallen," Light said.

 

Aaron Dean at Stearns Elementary has pavement issues himself. He is asking for the playground to be repaved.

 

"I see issues with heaving," Dean said. "We have students running on uneven pavement out there and I'm afraid somebody is going to get hurt at one point."

 

He would like the decade-old playground inspected so it doesn't fall apart. He wants some playground mulch, and a coat of paint in the hallways and classrooms couldn't hurt. 

 

Rush asked for some painting as well, replacement of six carpets, and new white boards to replace chalkboards. 

 

Williams Elementary School Principal Lisa Buchinski says the entrance on the south side isn't wide enough for two cars to pass, leading to vehicles tearing up the lawn, and she'd like a sidewalk on that side leading to the school.

 

Only Capeless Elementary School Principal Candy Jezewski and Taconic High School Principal John Vosburgh had no capital requests — the latter because the city has already committed to building a brand-new school expected to open in 2018.

 

"Many of these things are long, long overdue," Elias said.

 

But finding money for the repairs isn't going to be easy, Behnke said. Just to fulfill the requests from principals for instructional needs, the city would need to raise the budget by nearly $3 million, which is a 4.9 percent increase over this year's budget. That figure doesn't include the capital requests asked of the committee on Wednesday nor does it include the contractual increases for staff members. 

 

McCandless prefaced the daylong session by saying the committee was going to hear "very reasonable set of requests" but that once you add them all up, they are no longer reasonable.

 

The process has just begun to whittle spending down to a budget figure and capital request palatable for taxpayers.

 

"I think it is really critical to address some of these emerging issues," Tyer told the School Committee. "At the same time, we have to take a serious look at what things we can sacrifice in order to address these emerging issues." 

 

The budget session also included personnel, safety and security, and instructional wants — though Riello said much of what he heard was "needs" not wants. In two followup stories, iBerkshires will detail what the principals told the School Committee on those issues.