Abuse Found At Peck School In Hoyoke

The Disability Law Center (DLC) recently released its investigation report on the treatment of children in the Therapeutic Intervention Program (TIP) at the Peck School in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The report shows disturbing findings of “abuse and neglect, improper practices, and unsafe conditions” and that “[t]he District must take immediate corrective measures to prevent further harm to these children.”

The DLC, led by Executive Director Christine Griffin (who also serves as Chair to AAPD’s Board of Directors), is an organization “authorized to investigate incidents of alleged abuse, neglect, and civil rights violations of persons with disabilities within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” 

The Boston Globe Editorial Board On The Holyoke Receivership

Holyoke schools have the best chance if the state takes over

ByThe Editorial Board   APRIL 06, 2015

Massachusetts Education Commissioner
 Mitchell Chester recommended the
 state take over Holyoke schools.

Chronically underperforming

school districts are often a hodgepodge of dysfunctional components. They require dramatic and decisive intervention in order to give their students a better shot at success. The Holyoke Public Schools have reached that crossroads. Late last month, State Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester recommended that the state take over the Holyoke schools and bring in outside help. The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education should grant Chester’s request to put the district into receivership — a proven path to improving struggling schools. 

State Takes Over Holyoke Schools

The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education declared Holyoke Public Schools a "chronically underperforming" Level 5 district on Wednesday.

With that rating, Holyoke Public Schools is placed under the control of the state and will be managed by a receiver.

This vote follows a highly attended forum on Holyoke Public Schools in the city Monday night, where the school community largely asked city schools remain under local control. 

How Teacher Agustin Morales Got His Job Back

Sarah Jaffe in Salon

Agustin Morales’s first day back at school came a little bit late this year. On November 24, he began his fourth year as English teacher at Maurice A. Donahue Elementary School in Holyoke, Massachusetts, to congratulations from his students and colleagues.

Morales had to fight to return to school at all this year. As Salon reported in October, he was let go last spring, after his evaluations took a sudden turn at about the same time as he joined fellow teachers and parents to protest so-called “data walls” in the classroom; teachers had been instructed to post students’ names and test scores on a public wall as a motivation tactic. Parent Paula Burke called the walls “public humiliation.”