Residents in Holyoke, Massachusetts will soon learn what will come next for the public school district as the city works to regain control over Holyoke Public Schools and exit state receivership.
A finalized plan and steps needed to exit receivership after nearly a decade under state control will soon be presented to the public.
During a school committee meeting on Monday, months’ worth of planning involving acting state Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Dr. Russell Johnston will be on display.
“We'll get to talk about more the transition plan - it will also be presented to the full school committee for discussion, as well as talking more about what the stakeholder engagement plan is going to be,” said Dr. Yadilette Rivera-Colón during one of the last “Local Control Subcommittee” meetings of the summer in July.
At the time, Rivera-Colón said one of the major components for the plan will involve preparing the Holyoke School Committee for the roles it will be playing.
According to officials like Mayor Joshua Garcia, the plan will address “four major workstreams of school district governance” – including policy development, “Finance and Budget,” as well as how to eventually go about the hiring of a new school superintendent and how to evaluate them.
“We were very deliberate not to show … that a full search is what's included in this plan,” said Johnston during the same meeting, explaining how the superintendent search process was not set in stone and up to the committee to decide. “It might be, but… the most important part is the committee deciding what its plan will be.”
Since 2015, Holyoke schools have been in receivership due to chronic underperformance. It’s one of only three districts in the state to be in receivership – the other two in Lawrence and Southbridge.
A turnaround plan was developed for the district of around 5,000 students – one that led to a significant increase in graduation rates, rising 15 points to 74.9 percent by 2021-22.
There are still multiple areas in need of improvement, according to state-appointed Receiver and Superintendent Anthony Soto, as articulated in a letter sent to then-Commissioner Jeffrey Riley in December, which advocated for starting the transition out of receivership.
Needs for improvement include addressing high rates of chronic absenteeism and MCAS scores that continue to lag behind state averages.
The school committee is also pushing to exit receivership. After advocating and calling for meetings with state leaders, it received word in March that the state was not only interested in assisting but fleshing out what the transition would look like.
“it's hard to even think about, but our first conversation about this plan happened in March 15, 2024, and we decided that we were going to have eight meetings scheduled with DESE and the local control subcommittee to develop this point,” Rivera-Colón recalled. “… we started with the initial discussion, then we talked about the goals and the timeline - we talked about continuous improvement, finance and budget, policy collaboration…”
Monday’s presentation will be at the Holyoke School Committee meeting at 6 p.m. at Dean High School.
The school committee is also expected to begin seeking out “interested community stakeholders” to participate on a Community Advisory Team as next steps are taken.
