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Date: 10/7/2021
HOLYOKE - The Holyoke School Committee discussed a large number of employment vacancies among staff during their most recent meeting.
With the committee meeting for the first time since school began in August on Sept. 27, Superintendent/Receiver Anthony Soto said the district had been "hit hard" by late resignations. He said they had received 15 teaching resignations in August, leaving a total of 27 teaching vacancies. Of those vacancies, he said eight were special education positions as well as about 41 paraprofessional vacancies. Soto said they would continue to recruit staff with several job fairs, referral programs and offering reimbursement for a program paraprofessionals took.
School Committee member Rebecca Birks addressed the lack of special education teachers and said they were not in compliance with the state. "I'm fielding a lot of phone calls from parents that aren't receiving speech services, and I know that the district is trying to figure something out, but in the interim, we're non-compliant with the state and that's an issue," she said. She went on to address concerns from families that their special needs students were regressing.
"As a parent of a special needs student, seeing regression is one of the worst things that you can see," she said. Birks went on to say that the district had struggled with special education for "a long time," and she felt it was time to provide more options to and work with families in the district. "I know Mary Ann is reaching out to agencies, but we need to start offering options because legally it's our responsibility to make sure that these students are getting the services provided."
She then asked about specific vacancies within the special education department and what positions had yet to be filled. In addition to 22 special education paraprofessional vacancies, Soto said there were two psychologist vacancies, three special education teachers and speech therapist vacancies. He emphasized that he shared Birks concerns and it was simply a matter of inadequate staffing, which he said the district was exhausting every option in providing services for students. He said when he "reached out to the state to see if there was any support they could offer, they didn't have any short-term solutions." He said, "They did, as a state, they did mention potentially looking at partners to develop pipelines for positions like these."
When asked about substitute teachers, Soto said, "Those were positions that were tougher to fill at the beginning of the year, more so than some of our teaching position, we really struggled to get substitutes and it's a challenge when we have staff that have to quarantine." He went on to say that the district had "made a lot of investments in our coaches and a lot of investment in our academic and intervention teachers," that they'd had to "pull those positions" due to a lack of substitute teachers.
He continued, and said the district was working to offer incentives for new staff including a relocation bonus, an employee referral program, evaluating their pay and a sign-on bonus. Soto added that Holyoke was not the only district struggling with a shortage of teaching staff. "All of these different factors are contributing to these issues we're seeing today, and we're doing our best. Our HR team, God bless them, they've been working really hard. This is the toughest time of the year for them," he said.
Addressing students' return to school, Soto said there had been a decrease in enrollment, which was "more evident" in the pre-school and kindergarten grades. In total, he said the district was down about 171 students in these grades. He said overall in the remaining grades one through 12 was up from two years. During the 2019-2020 school year there had been 4,545 students enrolled in these grades and the current enrollment for students in these grades was 4,569. Soto attributed the pandemic and parents' comfort level to the decrease in enrollment in pre-K and kindergarten. For the 2019-2020 school year those grades saw an enrollment of 769 and the enrollment for the current school year was 598. Soto said attendance for the first four weeks of school had been at about 85 percent, which was "consistent with last year." He said prior to the coronavirus pandemic, attendance at this time was "about 90 percent." He said attendance tended to be highest in the mid-week and lowest on Mondays and Fridays. Soto went on to say that 47 students who were enrolled had not shown up since the beginning of the school year and may end up being withdrawn from enrollment.
Later in an update about the coronavirus and its impact on the district, Soto said as of Sept. 24 the district had seen 164 cases of COVID-19. In the last two weeks, however, 93 of those cases had been reported. Soto said the number of cases "resulting in potential spread" was 19, including 18 students and one staff member. He said the potential spread was positive cases that had been identified as a result of being a close contact for someone who had previously tested positive. He said they referred to this as potential spread as they couldn't say definitively if the positive case was a result of being in close contact.
During the meeting's public comment portion, a current high school senior who attends Holyoke High School North discussed the loss of the ethnic studies director position. The student went on to say students within the program had "lost multiple opportunities to become 100 percent better for themselves." They went on to say one of such opportunities included University of Massachusetts (UMass) College Access Program (UCAP).
"This program was a partnership between UMass Amherst and the Ethnic Studies Program that helped seniors navigate the difficult and confusing college process such as helping to fill out financial aid forms, seeking scholarship opportunities and even having student mentors from UMass collaborate with the high school students to also discuss the issues of access and equality in schools," they said. They went on to say the program no longer exists due to the loss of the ethnic studies director position.
They noted they felt as though the director position was so much more than just a staffing position. "It's a gateway to respectful learning and a huge building block for the community of Holyoke High," they said, urging the committee to support the program both with their words and actions.
Next to speak was John "J.R." Rivera, a local community activist. He said he was speaking as a former student who had recently graduated. Rivera said he was "a proud dropout student," who had "just barely" graduated recently through Holyoke Community College's Gateway Program. He said he considered himself "a student who slipped through the cracks." He said several programs, including ethnic studies and the Gateway Program, helped him in "avoiding the crack that non-English speakers slip through."
"I can tell you with certainty that without one and just only one of these programs I would have slipped through that crack," he said. Rivera added that the Ethnic Studies Program helped "both students of color and not of color graduate" and give back to the community. He said while he was aware the program was not under consideration to be eliminated, the actions of the district sent a different message. He urged the district and School Committee members to collaborate with local stakeholders such as staff, students and community members to get feedback and reinstate the position of program director.
Kysa Nygreen, who works as an associate professor of education and school improvement at UMass, said she was attending the meeting as a representative of the college as well as a partner of the Ethnic Studies Program. "I'm just one of many university partners in this region who support ethnic studies and collaborate with Holyoke Ethnic Studies," she said. She then went on to reference a letter that she, along with 28 other university partners, had signed in June of 2021 advocating to keep the position of director of ethnic studies.
She went on to say there were "serious concerns" surrounding the elimination of the position, including the loss of all the opportunities for students through local universities and scholars. "Without a full-time Ethnic Studies director, much of this partnership work will not be sustained," she said.