Holyoke schools to be back in local control in July 2025

Almost a decade after the Holyoke Public Schools were put under state control because of chronic underperformance, state education officials announced Tuesday a "provisional decision" to remove the district from receivership, effective July 1, 2025.

The news became public at a monthly board of education meeting at the headquarters of the Massachusetts's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, or DESE, in Everett.

"We are announcing today the provisional release of Holyoke from chronically underperforming status, effective once we get through a provisional process," said Russell Johnston, DESE acting commissioner, "which means continuing on with the work that the mayor [Joshua Garcia] and the superintendent [Anthony Soto] have been leading in order to make sure that we have continued improvement post receivership."

The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education named Holyoke Public Schools a chronically underperforming district in 2015.

Since that time the district has been led by a state-appointed superintendent/receiver focused on implementing a "turnaround plan," most recently by Anthony Soto, who himself graduated from the Holyoke school system.

"I know there's still so much more work to do," Soto said at the meeting. "We still need to get better outcomes. But I feel really proud of the work that we've done over the last nine years and the foundation that we've helped create to improve the conditions of learning and improve the outcomes for our kids."

Soto said he was committed to working with the mayor, with DESE and the school committee - which will gain back control of the district's budget and the hiring and evaluation of the district superintendent — to make sure the transition back to local control is successful.

"I'm very confident in the mayor's leadership and our school committee that... we can pass the torch and they can take it to the next level and ensure that, you know, students are at the center of all the decisions that we make and that a focus on student outcomes is at the forefront," Soto said.

Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia told the board, at first in Spanish then in English that he was incredibly proud to arrive at this moment in time with state of Massachusetts.

"We feel very ready to move forward," said Garcia, who also went through the Holyoke Public Schools. He also served on the school board.

In the last decade the community has been doing a lot of soul searching, going into receivership Garcia said.

"We have been doing a lot of reconciliation of conflicts, and trying to understand the strategic direction we need to go as far as the district is concerned," Garcia said.

Even without any ability to make decisions since 2014, Garcia said the Holyoke school committee met every single month, every year since being in receivership, with former receivers and the current receiver.

"I think there were some lessons learned in this journey that I'm sure we can talk about and figure out how together we can pivot and try to be better when it comes to helping districts," Garcia said.

There's much more work still to do, Garcia said.

"We've put together a capacity building plan with clear benchmarks and what it is that we need to do to be ready for, for July 1st to hit the ground running," Garcia said, thanking Johnston and his team, Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler and Gov. Maura Healey for the support and understanding what needs to be done in Holyoke to achieve the shared goal of what's best for students.

Garcia also gave a "shout out" to every elected school board members, "both former and present, who have been extremely patient through this process and continue to remain committed so that we can be sure that we're ready on day one of July to hit the ground running."

Lawrence and Southbridge schools remain in receivership. Garcia pointed to the "quality of life challenges" in those districts and other Massachusetts schools.

"I think there's a different, higher level conversation in this ongoing journey [with districts] that we need to have around how we support those gateway cities," Garcia said.

Rather than going into the schools and having educators solve neighborhood issues, Garcia said he thinks there could be collaborative partnerships with the state to improve communities, "whether it's around housing or health and other social determinant factors that our children are going to school with."

Immediately after Garcia's comment, Matt Hills, the vice-chair of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education said he was very happy for Garcia and the city and its families, but on Garcia's last point Hills said, " please don't underestimate the impact that political leadership and educational leadership has had on [Acting DESE Commissioner Russell Johnston's] decision making on this."

He acknowledged that communities face challenges.

"You all have done, as I understand it, an excellent job embracing the moment and being willing to sort of work in a very cooperative way and get to the point where you're ready to take on the challenge. And political and educational leadership matters a lot in these decisions," he said.

In February 2024, former DESE Commissioner of Education Jeff Riley, who was appointed under Governor Charlie Baker, deferred action on a request from Garcia to begin the process of ending state receivership for the city's schools.

Riley stepped down in March 2024, and Johnston was appointed acting commissioner.

During the spring and summer of 2024, the Holyoke School Committee’s Local Control Subcommittee worked with DESE to create a capacity building plan, and the full School Committee approved it in August.

The plan focuses on implementing governance activities with targeted training supports in four key areas of school district governance: hiring a superintendent, evaluating a superintendent, budgeting and finance and developing policy.

In a press release, the Healey administration listed the district’s accomplishments since 2015 including an increase in the district’s four-year cohort graduation rate from 60.2% in 2014 to 74.6% in 2023.

The district also saw a reduction of the out-of-school suspension rate from 20% in the 2013-2014 school year, to 9% in 2022-23.

Holyoke Public Schools also expanded its pre-K programming to offer more than 500 seats to families in the last school year, through either district-operated or partner-operated classrooms.

This story is a production of the New England News Collaborative. It was originally published by New England Public Media.