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Date: 3/27/2015
HOLYOKE – About 100 students walked out of their classes at Holyoke High School at 9:15 a.m. on March 24 and walked to City Hall to show support for the city retaining control over its owns schools.
According to the press release issued by the students, the march was timed with a meeting of the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
The release read: “Why do they think they know that’s best for us? Why do they think they can make decisions for us? They walk into our classrooms for one day and think they know us. They think that we don’t care about our education and it always comes back to stereotypes. Many of us are people of color; that makes them think that we don’t care; this is racism. Our intelligence shouldn’t be based off of a test; the test does not define us. We deserve more.”
Waving signs that read “I’m more than just a test” and “We are the 70 percent that you forgot about,” and chanting, they gathered at the steps outside of Mayor Alex Morse’s office.
One student speaking at the rally accused state education officials of racism, which was met with approval. “Preach it,” one student yelled in reply.
The march came as surprise to the mayor’s staff, one of whom had seen some references on Facebook, but none knew what students were going to do.
After chanting “Come out, come out!” Morse appeared and thanked the students for coming to City Hall. He recalled how he had been active in political issues in high school.
He said their march sent “a strong message to the community and to people in Boston.”
Morse shared the students’ sentiments, as he too doesn’t want the state to take over the school district. The DESE has already classified the Morgan Elementary School as a Level 5 school and Dean Vocational High School as Level 4. According to the report issued by DESE in February, Holyoke’s highest performing school is Sullivan Elementary, a Level 2 school.
According to the report, “The district did not reach its 2014 Composite Performance Index (CPI) targets for ELA, math and science … Holyoke students’ growth on the MCAS assessments on average is slower than that of their academic peers statewide … Holyoke did not reach the 2014 four year cohort graduation target of 80.0 and the five year cohort graduation target of 85.0 percent.”
“Yes, we can better but we must retain local controls,” Morse said.
One of the organizers, Aleyx Bernard, said Acting Holyoke High Principal Stephen Sullivan had threatened suspensions of one to five days for students that left for the march.
He said, “It’s worth it.”
Naudia Sanchez, a member of the Holyoke Youth Commission, said there were voice messages sent to students saying there would be “consequences” for their actions.
No teachers or other adults accompanied the students as they made their way from the high school although Holyoke police made sure the group safely crossed intersections. Several members of the National Lawyers Guild did march with the group as neutral observers.
A call to Sullivan to confirm whether or not the students were disciplined was not returned by press time.