"Our enrollment has increased slightly but so has our students living in poverty," Superintendent Joseph Curtis said.

"So we are very close to 71 percent of our attending students living in poverty. This is a very close number to our other urban counterparts, Worcester being an example, and so as our poverty rate continues to grow, it did solidify us being in Group 11."

Earlier this month, Jennifer Stokes, assistant superintendent for school transformation and accountability, reported that there have been 70 unhoused students in the district since September.  This is 20 more than the previous year.

"The numbers, in my opinion, are quite high," she told the Homelessness Advisory Committee.

Twenty-two of those students are in a shelter, six are in a motel or hotel, 30 are doubled up with friends and family, and 16 of those students were also homeless last year. Seven of the unhoused students are immigrants from the state emergency shelter housed at the Hilton Garden Inn and 24 are new to the district and have moved to Pittsfield in shelters or as part of an unhoused family.

Wednesday's workshop kicked off the FY26 budget discussion.

"This is critically important that we are introducing you to a budget exercise. We begin to prepare for our budget typically at the end of October, early November, and at that time, as you can well imagine because we just found out today, we don't have any idea of what our Chapter 70 allocation will be in October, November," Curtis explained.

"But we also recognize that we can't start thinking about the next year's budget in January, right? We need to start having discussions, having our principals start to think about resources and allocations for the next year."