Pittsfield High School Still Has Lockers. Nobody Uses Them.

I walked Pittsfield High School on Saturday morning with Mayor Peter Marchetti and Superintendent Dr. Latifah Phillips. The building opened in 1931. The dome is still the dome. Four things about how kids actually go to school here now stuck with me more than the architecture.

First, the lockers. They are still in the halls. They are not used. Phillips said students do not need them the way we did. When I was in high school the backpack was a small apartment. Now the machine is the backpack.

Second, the books. The library still smells like books. The superintendent said high school work is mostly on Chromebooks. I asked the obvious question. No, they do not haul textbooks from class to class. That is why the lockers went quiet. It also made me feel about 100 years old, and I did not even go here.

Third, phones. There is a district rule: no cell phones out during class. They stay in the backpack or out of sight. Phillips said she is hearing from students that it helps them focus. There was talk of keeping phones out of the building entirely. That is not the rule this year.

Fourth, vaping. The old smoking lounge is gone, obviously. The new version is worse for the plumbing. Staff have had vapes flushed and stuck in the pipes. It is a problem in the high school and they are watching it in the middle schools too.

None of that means the building is a museum. About 700 to 800 kids will fill it this year. Ninth grade is the biggest class. The custodians spent the summer putting it back together after last year’s wear. The school still calls itself home under the dome. The habits inside it are just not the ones a lot of us remember!