The Healey-Driscoll Administration announced Monday night, the Holyoke Public Schools will exit state receivership and return to local control on July 1.
Massachusetts Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler was in Holyoke to make the announcement at the monthly school committee meeting.
The decision follows a provisional determination last October that the district would be ready if the Holyoke School Committee completed a capacity building plan developed with state education officials.
In a prepared letter, presented to Mayor Joshua Garcia and Receiver/Interim Superintendent Anthony Soto, Tutwiler formally announced the return to local control.
"I am pleased to inform you that Holyoke Public Schools will exit chronically underperforming status on July 1, 2025," Tutwiler wrote.
Based upon the evidence of progress that the school committee made through its Local Control Subcommittee, first to former Acting Commissioner Russell Johnston "and now myself," Tutwiler said, "I am confident that the [Holyoke School Committee] is well prepared to resume local governance of the district, with transitional supports provided by the exit assurances."
Tutwiler said this historic decision honors the entire Holyoke community, "and particularly the students, families, educators, staff and leaders who have carried forward the district’s transformational efforts over the past ten years."
Leadership
Under Soto’s leadership, Tutwiler said, community stakeholders have consistently shared their input into the district’s strategic planning and decision-making processes. Beginning July 1, Soto will continue leading the district as Interim Superintendent for the 2025-26 school year.
"It is my sincere hope and expectation that HSC and HPS will continue to demonstrate their growing capacities to achieve the strategic improvement goals they have set in collaboration with the Holyoke community," Tutwiler said, adding that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) will continue to support the district’s strategic transformation efforts "by providing monitoring and consultation around the metrics identified in the exit assurances document."
At a meeting of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in Everett, Mass., on Tuesday, Tutwiler listed student and district achievements that lead to the state's return of local control to Holyoke.
"Gains in graduation rates, a reduced number of suspensions, expanded dual language and pre-K offerings, the redesign of Holyoke High School and the essential work that the school committee has put in place to improve their governance — and so much more," Tutwiler said.
Many changes since 2015
Three state commissioners of education have had input into the district since 2015, when the state first determined Holyoke schools were "chronically under performing.
Just a year and a half ago, under then Commissioner Jeff Riley, Holyoke leaders petitioned state education officials — to end the receivership, saying they were ready. The petition was denied.
On Tuesday, Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia thanked the Healey administration, state education officials and all of Holyoke.
"It took some time for my community to do a little bit of soul searching, and come together and navigate what we need to do on our end as partners," Garcia said. "But also some soul searching on the Commonwealth's side, because we both recognized there was no blueprint for how to do this."
No blueprint then, and recently several educators have mentioned how Holyoke could become a model for the two Massachusetts school districts still under state control, Lawrence and Southbridge.
The end of receivership is not a goal, said Holyoke School Committee vice chair Yadilette Rivera-Colón, a biology professor at Bay Path University.
[“It’s] only the beginning, and we're here to start doing that work, to continue moving forward and to be able to really bring education to all the students in our district,” she said.
Teachers unions says it's a 'new form of receivership'
The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) the largest teachers union in the state, objected to exit assurances related to collective bargaining agreements.
Under Tutwiler's two-year transition exit plan, the district's receiver developed a new compensation system "which was implemented after consultation with the union," the plan says. "While the professional compensation system may be modified in consultation with the union, it must maintain a career path as a specific component, where employees are compensated based on individual effectiveness, professional growth, and student academic growth," it says.
MTA President Max Page and Vice President Deb McCarthy said in a statement on Monday that while state receivership of the city’s schools will end July 1, it's with provisions that limit educators’ rights.
“Until members of the Holyoke Teachers Association have their full bargaining rights restored, Holyoke’s public schools remain in a form of state control and severed from the community," the release said.
As state education officials prepare "to replace a state-appointed receiver with a superintendent and restore some authority to the School Committee, educators are being unjustly cut out of the decision-making process. In this scenario, the community loses a powerful advocate for students and their needs," Page and McCarthy said.
They called the next step in Holyoke, "a new form of receivership," saying the the state will perpetuate undesirable working conditions in Holyoke Public Schools, making it more difficult for the city to attract and retain the best educators.
The State House News Service contributed to this story.
