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Date: 12/6/2021
HOLYOKE – The Holyoke City Council and School Committee met on Nov. 30 to discuss the potential benefits of providing cursive writing in younger grades.
Ward 2 Councilor Terry Murphy explained, “Research shows that a lot of states got away from cursive writing, and now there have been studies that indicate, especially in the lower grades, that it really has a significant impact on brain function and on creativity and all those kind of things.”
He said putting cursive writing back into the lower grades is something to consider because he thinks the “benefits outweigh the negatives.” He then quoted two articles from Governors Magazine that stated, “The high tech world focuses heavily on computers for writing. Cursive writing is reemerging as a necessary writing tool, and learning cursive writing is excellent for honing fine motor skills in children. When writing cursive, both the right and the left hemispheres in the brain show increased activity. The stimulus hemisphere activity is known as right and left brain synergy. This brain activity promotes memory and language functions. Right, and left brain synergy does not occur using a computer keyboard or when writing in print.”
Councilor At Large Howard Greany added to the point and emphasized that “Cursive writing should be taught just going forward – even writing a check, the whole life isn’t on a keyboard – You have to write your name legibly, these are things that show a bit of professionalism.” He added that he feels it should be taught at a young age and that “it’s a lost art.”
City Councilor Rebecca Lisi asked the School Committee if cursive writing is being taught and asked for a baseline understanding of what is happening in the school system.
Chief Instructional Officer for Holyoke Public Schools, Valerie Annear, answered that she agreed with council member Murphy about some of his information. But, she said, “it wasn’t just about cursive writing, but writing in overall.” In addition, she said, “Having students put thought to paper and not just on the computer, particularly at the younger grades, is important for brain development. So, we want our students practicing their penmanship.”
She said that the Massachusetts Common Core standards are for grades K-2 to print the formation of letters and attend to grammatical conventions. “In grade 3, that’s where cursive writing is introduced.” However, she added that they do not have a set block of time throughout the day to focus only on cursive writing. Nor do they have a “heavy emphasis” on it. She added, “That’s not to say that we don’t want to, and it’s not we’re replacing it with a computer. It’s about balancing both, so students need to know how to compose writing and standards around using technology.”
She clarified that the purpose of the writing curriculum is to “convey meaning through writing and pay attention to the purpose of task and order.” She added it wasn’t to say that you wouldn’t’ find teachers not teaching cursive.
Superintendent/Receiver Anthony Soto noted, “The only time cursive writing comes up in the state is in the third grade and then shortly after.”
Annear clarified this by stating, “It’s also in the fourth and fifth-grades, and it’s the minimum of what we should be teaching and getting our students ready for. So it doesn’t mean you can’t go above and beyond. She pointed out that in the fourth and fifth grades, the standard is to “at least have them be able to sign their name in cursive.”
She reiterated her previous points on the importance of multiple writing focus points such as writing with purpose, attending to audience, how to respond with argumentative writing and how to position and be able to back writing with evidence. In addition, she mentioned the importance of how be able to do literary analysis and creative writing. She said these are skills that are important to provide students with the skills necessary to “exceed in college [ and] beyond.”
In conclusion, she added, “I’ve already had a conversation with our ELA director, and we are going to do some informal surveys of our coaches so we can see where in the schools if there are pockets of cursive writing happening, and what resources are being used at the school level so that we can systematize this.”
All were in favor of making a motion that complied with conditions that the City Council will receive a report in at least six months.
Receivership
Next on the agenda was an effort from Counselor Rebecca Lisi to document and make transparent the work Holyoke Public Schools have done under receivership.
Lisi said, “The goal of my order here is, I think the community really needs to understand what, if any, progress we’ve made under receivership. How far have we come, and then where are the gaps and where do we need to focus our attention and improve? Or, organize the community in some way to get involved.”
Soto stated, “Every quarter I provide an update to the School Committee. Each year we go through a process.” He added that “the School Committee spearheaded the effort to reach out to Commissioner [Jeffrey] Riley and asked him ‘what is it going to take to get out of receivership?’”
Riley agreed to meet with a few members and challenged the School Committee with the question, “If we were to get out on receivership, what’s going to change from 2015 with things that led us into receivership? How are we going to avoid going back into receivership?” In response to these questions, Soto said, “The School Committee and I are going to have a retreat in the middle of December where we were are going to talk about this.”
After the retreat, Riley has agreed to meet with them again to discuss what comes out of the meeting. And as of yet, “The Commissioner doesn’t have any plans to remove the receivership or have any metrics or data points that will get Holyoke out of receivership, but he’s willing to continue the discussion.” Soto noted.
He then presented data and metrics on the performance of the schools since 2015. He explained that due to COVID-19, MCAS was not administered in 2020. Yet, he was pleased to report the improvement in graduation rates. “One thing that I’m pretty proud of is that you can see that for our Latinx students and our students with disabilities - our students with disabilities in particular - that graduation rate has increased pretty steadily over the years since receivership,” he noted.
As for the Dean Property transfer at the intersection of St. Vincent and Northampton Streets to the city for the potential purpose of constructing some homes and making streets and sidewalks safer for all while producing tax revenues, all the motions were complied with and approved.
To view the meeting in its entirety, please visit https://boxcast.tv/channel/ja5gitxp5jbuywlacgzd