The School Committee discusses the candidates for the superintendent screening committee at its Dec. 17 meeting.
Photo credit: Holyoke Media
HOLYOKE — The Holyoke School Committee met on Dec. 17 to review and approve a slate of candidates who will serve on the screening committee for the superintendent search.
The city and School Committee sent out a link for interested residents to sign up for the superintendent screening committee.
Officials stated they were looking for 11 to 13 people to review applications and conduct early interviews. The selected volunteers will also take part in the orientation meeting and multiple meetings in early to mid-January.
There were 51 candidates who responded to a Google form that they were interested in serving on the screening committee.
Holyoke School Committee Vice Chair Dr. Yadilette Rivera-Colon stated, “I want to extend my biggest gratitude to everybody who put their name and took the time to go out of their way and volunteer for this work given that there’s a time commitment, multiple days at the end of the day where everybody has a job and they have to go get out of their job and go do this. I really appreciate everybody.”
Rivera-Colon also stated that, as of the meeting, there were two student applicants since they wanted to have a Holyoke student on the committee.
School Committee member Ellie Wilson broke down each candidate into seven different categories and wanted to see two members come from the parent/guardian category, two candidates from community members, two candidates from the educator group, two candidates from administration, two from elected officials, two student candidates and one candidate from the “other” category for a total of 13 members.
After deliberation, the members chosen for the superintendent screening committee included Deborah Rodriguez, Karleen Lopez, Christian Carde, Lisa Smith O’Connor, Kate Sullivan Craven, Nestor Muriel, Sadie Childs Cora, Yaraliz Soto, Ryan Carrie, Patty Lubold, Joan Matsalia as well as two students.
The School Committee also approved Anthony Sotolotto and Maria Chambers as alternates.
The Holyoke School Committee formally started the search for its next superintendent at its July 21, 2025 meeting when the committee voted to initiate a national search for the next leader of Holyoke Public Schools, with the goal of having that person in place on July 1.
At that time, the School Committee agreed to wait for formal interviews until January or February, after the elections, so that the committee doing the interviews would be the same one that does the hiring.
School Committee member Devin Sheehan said the goal of the screening committee is that they finish up their work on Jan. 22 and come up with three to five candidates to present to the School Committee.
Those candidates are currently scheduled to be presented to the School Committee on Jan. 26. Sheehan said the presentation will be revealing the names of the candidates.
Between Jan. 26 and Feb. 6, School Committee members must go in teams and do district visits at all the locations of the finalists.
Sheehan explained, “Teams of School Committee members, two or three per group will visit the districts of the people who are applying for the job to meet with students, administrators, co-workers, all the different types of groups of people.”
If there are five candidates, the School Committee will meet each night from Feb. 9 through Feb.13 to conduct interviews for the finalists.
If there are three candidates, they would only meet for three nights, one night per candidate.
Sheehan stated the School Committee will vote on a candidate after all the interviews are conducted.
Interim Superintendent Anthony Soto was appointed to serve in the role from July 1, 2025, through June 30.
