Massachusetts has officially determined Holyoke Public Schools can exit receivership, after a decade under state control. Local leaders say there’s plenty of work ahead, but there’s much to celebrate in the meantime.
Graduation rate gains, infrastructure upgrades and a school committee trained to lead were all cited by state Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler Monday as he announced the latest greenlight for HPS, broadcast by Holyoke Media.
“Today, I am extremely pleased to announce that, on Tuesday, July, 1, Holyoke Public Schools will be the first district to exit receivership,” he said before the Holyoke School Committee.
For almost a year, Holyoke has been operating under a “provisional determination” to exit receivership, granted by the state in October.
It marked a decade’s worth of progress after the district fell into “chronically underperformance status” in 2015, entering receivership and prompting a turnaround plan: one to address years of poor student performance and other issues.
HPS would go on to improve enough to merit consideration for a receivership exit in recent years. Petitions, commissioner changes and multiple meetings later, the state deemed the city nearly-ready to resume local control.
As announced by the Healey administration, the final determination came down to the state’s education commissioner. In this case, that would be Tutwiler, who is serving as commissioner in the interim.
“That determination is under my purview as commissioner and it comes after notable gains in graduation rates, a reduced number of suspensions, expanding pre-K offerings and dual language programming in the district and the redesign of Holyoke High School,” he said. “Also, the notable and essential work this body, the school committee, has put in place to improve their governance. That, and so much more.”
The school committee has undergone months of training and building capacity to fully-manage the district of some 4,800 students.
The body lost most of its powers when the district entered receivership, but continued to meet and act over the years.
Amid its recent training, the committee’s reviewed hundreds of district policies, picked current Receiver/Superintendent Anthony Soto to continue serving as interim superintendent post-exit and now looks to build on progress made so far.
“We get to be in charge of the budget, policies, evaluating our superintendent… we will get to choose our next leader as well, and get to engage with the community, which is something that is very important as we transition to local control,” Vice Chair Dr. Yadilette Rivera-Colón told reporters.
The district stills needs to resolve a number of issues, like high teacher turnover rates, low test scores and student absenteeism.
But Soto says things are getting better. The city’s 2024 graduation rate reached 77.1 percent – an increase of over 15 points since the start of receivership. During that same period, “rates for English learners and students with disabilities increased more than 30 percentage points.”
HPS has also expanded Pre-K access – doubling its seats to allow for more than 500 preschoolers.
The district’s also seen a “gap-narrowing increase in the percentage of Hispanic/Latino students in grades 11 and 12 completing advanced coursework,” according to the state, rising from 32 percent in 2018 to over 54 percent as of last year.
“Holyoke Public Schools is a much different place than it was 10 years ago,” Soto said during the school committee meeting. “We have a strong foundation to build off of. We’ve got some great leaders here in the room that are ready to take on that challenge … and build off of the strong foundation that we have.”
Officials like Mayor Joshua Garcia add that, if Massachusetts continues its receivership model, his city stands to serve as a case study for all future districts.
“This is the first time it's been done in Massachusetts history - there's three districts that have been in receivership for quite some time. We weren't the first one in, and we ain't the last one out, so we're happy to pave the way, and hopefully … be a blueprint for our colleagues in other districts to use to climb out of receivership too, but certainly an exciting time,” he said.
Lawrence and Southbridge Public Schools are also under state control.
While Holyoke will no longer be among them come July, some receivership-era policies will be sticking around. Garcia and Soto agreed with the state to keep various rules on the books - part of a series of exit assurances.
Among the turnaround plan items remaining are policies limiting what can be bargained over with the Holyoke Teachers Association, leading to criticism from both the HTA and the statewide Massachusetts Teachers Association.
According to Tutwiler, the education commissioner will determine two years from now whether those assurances will still be needed.
Tutwiler will be shedding the commissioner title in the days to come as former Chicago Public Schools Head Pedro Martinez takes the reins.
