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Date: 5/10/2022
HOLYOKE/CHICOPEE – The Center School is beginning its move from Holyoke to Chicopee in a transition to give more space and future resources to meet the needs of their students.
The Center School for Crisis Intervention and Assessment, which operates under Positive Regard Network, educates students ages 5 to 22 and provides clinical and allied health services in an educational milieu.
Students are separated by units and wings throughout the building to keep age groups separated.
Positive Regard Network Chief Operating Officer Chris Duff said the move comes as the school looks to improve the space and resources for their students. Duff added the students they serve historically have issues functioning in a regular school setting.
“They find their way to us over periods of time of school failure for a million different reasons. It culminates in behavioral issues, but it really begins with issues with communication, issues with social and emotional regulation and management, to kids with trauma history and things like that,” Duff said. “The starting point is very different for a lot of the kids we serve, but the end point is really they are exhibiting behaviors that a public school system can manage.”
The Center School has been around since the mid-1990s and are “out of district private schools” according to Duff. Referrals from public schools for students struggling with mental health or developmental difficulties, including Autism Spectrum Disorder, come to the Center School where they are given the proper resources to meet their needs and continue their education.
The public school district then pays the Center School tuition for their refferred student to attend. The school is also Department Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) certified.
Positive Regard Network moved all students from the Springdale Education Center in Holyoke to the new Chicopee location and half the students from the Center School on Northampton Street in Holyoke as well to the new school building. The Chicopee building that will serve as the Center School’s new home, purchased in 2019, is 110,000 square feet and can serve close to 300 students at full capacity. Meanwhile, the old building still continues to operate with some students.
While Duff noted he hopes the Center School and the Positive Regard Network can still use the Holyoke building, the move to a new location in Chicopee has more to offer their students.
“If you were to look at private schools that serve the kind of kids that we serve, you won’t find a campus like this one anywhere. The property itself is beautiful, it’s all redone inside and the classrooms have state of the art technologies,” Duff said.
He noted that specials like music, gym, agriculture, arts and many more will have their own space to expand and thrive with students in the Chicopee location.
“Kids like this historically haven’t had good experiences in school and we’ve always said school really should be a second home for kids. When they get there, they should feel the same way, safe and that their needs are being met and they can enjoy it,” Duff said. “That’s what we feel like we are going to be offer here in this building for them and that’s new for a lot of them. They can feel a sense of pride about the school that they’re going to.”
The Center School also provides occupational therapy, speech services, physical therapy to meet student’s specific needs and now have a new library and tech space for students which provides even more resources for students.
Duff said like most in the education world, staffing has been a challenge but that the growth for the Center School and their new location will hopefully continue momentum in finding staff to help serve their students.