HOLYOKE – After working in the Holyoke Public School system for 20 years, Aaron Morris was officially announced the new principal of Dr. Marcella R. Kelly School on July 9.

Morris was born and raised in the city and attended Westfield State University before returning to Holyoke to work.

“I did my student teaching here and got a job right out of that and have been here ever since. Now, I’m currently employed by the Holyoke Public Schools, but I also live in Holyoke and my two teenage daughters go to Holyoke High North,” said Morris.

He spent the first years of his career at Kelly School as an elementary school teacher before shifting to a middle school math teacher. After that, he spent four years as assistant principal at Kelly School and the last three working as assistant principal at Peck School.

“My return here as the principal of Kelly School is a coming home of sorts,” said Morris.

He said that it felt right to accept the new role and return to where his career began.

“When the opening came up at Kelly, it felt right to return here where I started. The school shaped so much of my early career as an educator and shaped my beliefs about what it means to be an educator in Holyoke,” he said. “They’ve made great gains in terms of developing a warm and welcoming atmosphere and really working together as a community of learners and staff. Coming here was exciting to me because I was going to be able to continue that work with them and build on that.”

Morris said as principal he hopes to continue to develop Kelly School’s dual language program. This was initially started before COVID-19.

“That didn’t necessarily jive with the idea of a global pandemic, so it got off to a rocky start. This year, we are introducing both K and 1 dual language for our students and so I’m hoping that in the next few years we can really grow as a dual language school in the city and offer that to the students down here in the community at Kelly,” said Morris.

With the school year beginning, Morris hopes that students and community members will follow Kelly School’s mission to work hard, be kind and share their voice.

“We’re really looking for students to work hard, to be kind to each other as they’re coming off potentially a year and a half of not being in school and to share their voice. One thing that is important to me as I take on this role is that we have all voices at the table, whether it’s the students, the staff, the families, the community partners… I really want to make sure that we have all the voices at the table as we start to make decisions about our school community and what we look like in the future,” said Morris.