HOLYOKE – The Joint School Committee-City Council Subcommittee met on May 26 to discuss changes in coming years to combat literacy struggles for young students.

Valerie Annear, chief instructional officer of Holyoke Public Schools (HPS), presented data showing literacy rates of the third grade population over the last five years. The HPS recently began using a new assessment program called STAR that takes results from students and puts focus on where they are in their learning with lessons to match.

Annear explained that while the schools are still administering STAR assessments for this school year, the data shows HPS perfomance is currently “significantly” below the national average.

“We know we have significant work to do and we have some tightened actions that we plan to do over the next few years to address this and continue to address it,” Annear said.

According to Annear, 52 percent of third grade students in Holyoke schools are at or above reading levels, compared to the 79 percent national average. She continued showing the English language arts (ELA) MCAS data from last year’s third graders that also confirmed this is an important area of concern for the schools.

Of last year’s HPS third graders, only 15 percent of them met expectations according to Annear, who called the situation “really dire.”

Because of this situation, Annear said the HPS are already in the process of completing and implementing an early literacy plan and are going to be partnering with relay partners to use instructional data to drive planning.

Annear also introduced the Holyoke Early Learning Initiative (HELI) as a re-energized program that has the vision for every child in Holyoke being healthy and on track for early school success. HELI will work to mobilize and align the work of a network of parents, caregivers, providers, partners and the wider community across Holyoke.

Receiver/Superintendent Anthony Soto said the schools have just gone through the entry plan process and are already getting a lot of feedback. This has started a strategic planning process that Soto hopes will create a cohesive plan that includes plenty of input from the community. Soto added that Steering and Advisory committees have also been put together to work through this planning process to address the early literacy needs of the schools.

“We haven’t had the resources and we haven’t had the focus,” said Soto. “One thing that was clear to me was we needed to narrow our focus and I’m happy this has become a priority of the district.”

Soto did share one concern of his being that the current job market could present some issues for their planning. Soto said at a recent job fair he attended for HPS, they only met with eight teachers when in the past they had seen over 100 come to discuss teaching opportunities in the district. He added a similar theme was seen at another recent job fair.

“Our plan does rely on having additional supports in those early grades so we are really hopeful what we put together is focused and professional development we provide will help change what’s happening,” Soto said.

Soto continued discussing the actions being taken to create the plan to address the early literacy issue the schools are facing, saying they want to create 1.5 years of growth per year to accelerate learning. He added while they will always seek to be at 100 percent of students reading at the proper level, a plan that helps accelerate learning in literacy would help the district catch up to the national average down the line.

Annear added that while performance numbers are low and there is a long way to go in flipping the script, they now know that a research-based process will benefit the early literacy construction they are working on.

Soto said with more funding coming to the schools, they are in a position where they have the proper resources to address the issue of students struggling in early literacy, unlike in years past.

“Part of the reason we see what we see is we haven’t had the resources to do the things we want to do at the pace we want to do them,” Soto said. “We are not in that position now. Bumps in the road in planning will be about human capital resources that aren’t available. We are in a time where during the [coronavirus] pandemic, people have chosen to leave the industry.”

Soto added staffing is not an issue unique to Holyoke and that he has had discussions with other superintendents who have expressed similar concerns. He also felt that a big shift in the coming years alongside this planning process would be felt through redistricting and rezoning of schools and hopefully the addition of a new middle school.