FITCHBURG (AP) — The state education board moved yesterday to place the Holyoke public schools into receivership, citing disturbing trends in student achievement and dropout rates.
The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted 8-3 at a meeting held in Fitchburg to accept a recommendation from state Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester to designate the Holyoke schools as “Level 5” or chronically underperforming.
The designation triggers a state takeover of the school system.
“I approach receivership with a profound sense of responsibility to the youth and city of Holyoke,” Chester said in a statement immediately after the vote. “In light of the persistent and pervasive underperformance of the district, it simply is not defensible to leave on the table the tools and authorities that receivership provides.
Chester plans to name a receiver, either an individual or not-for-profit organization, later this spring. The receiver is expected to take control of the schools prior to the start of the 2015-2016 academic year.
Holyoke has a population roughly the size of Westfield’s but according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau figures, 31.5 percent of the Holyoke’s residents live below the poverty level, nearly three times the state average.
Barbara Madeloni, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, said she was disappointed by the board’s vote for receivership, calling it “anti-Democratic.”
She noted that hundreds of community leaders turned out Monday night for a public hearing to ask for the schools to be kept under local control.
“For the board today to then really discount the voices of the people of Holyoke is just deeply troubling,” Madeloni said. “This is a community with really clear ideas about what their children need.”
State education officials said overall student achievement in the city’s public schools was among the lowest of any school district in Massachusetts, with many schools ranking in the bottom 10 percent statewide. Holyoke’s on-time graduation rate was the lowest of any K-12 system in the state, and its dropout rate among the highest, they added.
Madeloni said graduation rates were improving and she also cited a strong bilingual education program in the district.
Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse did not immediately return a message seeking comment on yesterday’s vote.
The city of Lawrence is the only Massachusetts school district currently in receivership.
