DESE members, left, meet with Mayor Joshua Garcia, School Committee member Devin Sheehan, Superintendent Receiver Anthony Soto and Acting Chief of Staff Laren Wu to discuss Holyoke’s exit from receivership.
Reminder Publishing screen capture by Tyler Garnet
HOLYOKE — On Nov. 19, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education hosted tis monthly meeting at Holyoke High School with one of their agenda items focusing on the transition from receivership for Holyoke Public Schools.
At a meeting on Oct. 29, DESE Acting Commissioner Russell Johnston announced Holyoke Public Schools’ provisional exit from chronically underperforming status, which is anticipated to end on July 1, 2025. He also announced that the Holyoke School Committee is building its capacity to resume local control of the Holyoke public schools at the end of the 2024-2025 school year.
Mayor Joshua Garcia, School Committee member Devin Sheehan, Superintendent Receiver Anthony Soto and Acting Chief of Staff Laren Wu from DESE joined the meeting to share progress the Holyoke School Committee has made in implementing the capacity building plan.
Soto talked about the school’s strategic plan and some accomplishments while Garcia and Sheehan talked about the capacity building plan.
The strategic plan was put together with help from the Community Advisory Board, which is made up of 45 people including teachers, family members, students, School Committee members. There were also about 1,500 students, families and educators provide input, according to Soto.
“Which is one of the main reasons why I truly believe that Holyoke is ready for local control because this strategic plan guides everything that we do. It will ultimately replace the turnaround plan that exists in Holyoke, Soto said when talking about all the responses he and the committee received,” he said.
A key piece of the strategic plan according to Soto, is the priorities they have been laid out which is early literacy, learning experiences, educator development, whole child and inclusion. Whole child is providing student access to social emotional learning, mental health supports and opportunities to explore their passions.
Some key efforts that Holyoke is attempting to do this school year from the overall strategic plan is having 80% of K-2 teachers implement evidence-based early literacy practices and 80% of teachers deliver high-quality lessons focused on students producing grade level work.
They are also working on implementing a comprehensive and multifaceted attendance plan to reduce chronic absenteeism, reduce referrals and suspension by implementing a multi-tiered system of support and implementing a differentiated coordinated professional learning series for educators.
Some accomplishments that Soto pointed out is graduation rates have increased and drop-out rates have also decreased.
“One thing that is not on here that I feel is necessary to take away is student demographic so our English language learners and our special education students, the data around their graduation rate is even more impressive. We’ve grown that by 25% to 30%,” Soto explained.
Enrollment in advanced coursework has also increased and the amount of students that are engaging in advance coursework doubled. The demographics have also shifted.
Other accomplishments included increasing the relevance of learning in high school, 75% Breakfast in the Classroom participation, 90-plus percent staff participating in equity training, 40% decrease in referrals and suspension and 26 students earning the Seal of Biliteracy last year.
Some structural improvements included moving from a K-8 system to separate elementary and middle schools in fall 2023, investing nearly $200 million in school infrastructure, implementing a financial budget development process, developing a staffing model, developing data management system and tools and developing a career pathway for paraeducators and teachers.
Sheehan discussed the capacity building plan which focuses on superintendent evaluation, superintendent hiring, finance and budget and policy development.
He said a local control subcommittee meets regularly to develop goals with the receiver and those superintendent goals will soon be approved. A community advisory team was also created.
Other subcommittees for finance and budget and policy also meet regularly to make sure they meet the goals of the school.
Garcia talked about the process out of receivership and said, “I think over the last nine years, I’ve made comments about us here in the city doing a little bit of soul searching. That was us, my community, coming together, reconciliating our differences and perspectives and finding that consensus that we can move forward and so finally I feel like we’ve gotten to that point.”
Johnston acknowledged that he still feels confident about Holyoke Public Schools’ provisional exit from state control.
“I want to point out what’s not in the room today that is reinforcing my belief that this absolutely the right decision to continue to move Holyoke towards release from receivership,” he said, “Those things include a long legacy of leaders in the district who came before the amazing leaders today. The second thing that’s very important is Receiver Superintendent Soto, I have the ability to look out to the audience and who’s not in this room are members of your team, and you know why, they’re out doing the work.”
