New England Public Radio

State Taking Over Holyoke’s Morgan Elementary School

State education officials are taking over four Massachusetts schools, including Holyoke’s Morgan Elementary School.

The schools have been on probation of sorts for three years and haven’t improved, says state education commissioner Mitchell Chester.

So Chester will take control of the school’s finances, craft a turnaround plan and decide whether he wants an outside group to implement it, or task the Holyoke district itself with that job.

“I won’t foreclose any of these options prematue,” he says. “For me, I need to find the best path forward to secure for students a much stronger education than the one they’ve been getting up until now,”

And as for staff at the school: Chester says the law allows him – if he chooses – to make all the teachers reapply for their jobs and also make changes to union contracts. But he says those decisions will be made after a group of local stakeholders offer suggestions.

In a statement, Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse says he will advocate for a plan that “actively includes” school district staff. And he thanked teachers and parents for their patience during the transition.

Greenfield Online School’s Fate on the Line at Education Board Meeting

A Massachusetts education board will decide the fate on Tuesday of the state’s first and only online school, based in Greenfield. 

In January, Governor Deval Patrick signed a law that requires the state to play a larger regulatory role over locally-based online schools that enroll students from across the state. It also requires the state’s only online school, the Greenfield Virtual Academy, to re-apply for a state certificate. After some debate, Greenfield officials made a last minute decision to go forward with an application this spring. State Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester called the application “not particularly strong,” but recommended the board pass it, with several conditions.

“I need a greater assurance than I received in the application that the school is ready to serve students with special needs, including students with disabilities, and English language learners. I need a greater specificity about their goals and how we’ll be able to measure their performance as they go forward.”

Chester says he would grant the school a 3-year certificate, rather than the requested 5 years, and fund the school about $1,000 less per pupil than asked for, based on the cost of online schools in other states. Greenfield Superintendent Susan Hollins says the school had a short amount of time to put together its application, but has been making preparations should the Board of Education accept its proposal. Hollins could not be reached for comment on Chester’s recommendation. Chester says he expects applications for at least two more online-only schools throughout the next year. If the board accepts Greenfield’s application, the school would formally make the transition to state oversight on July 1st. 

New Massachusetts Law Will Regulate Online Schools

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has signed legislation that will give the state oversight of online-based public schools. “Virtual schools” have emerged across the country as an alternative to traditional schools for elementary through high school students.

Though it’s based in Greenfield, the Massachusetts Virtual Academy, a K-8 school that opened in 2010, enrolls students from all across the commonwealth. 

“But there’s no role for the state prior to this law in asking for documentation of the quality of the program, and overseeing the program as it moves forward.”

That’s Massachusetts elementary and secondary education commissioner Mitchell Chester. He says the law will require virtual schools to enroll at least five percent of their students from their local district. That could be an issue at the Greenfield virtual school, since so far just 3% of the students are local residents. Susan Hollins, the Greenfield Schools Superintendent, says requiring 5% local students is questionable because the law also limits the number of students enrolled in virtual schools statewide to 2%.

“So to ask that 5% of the students in the school be from the district when only 2% of a population is thought to want or need, makes it very difficult for anywhere but maybe a city to have a single, district-sponsored virtual school.”

The Greenfield virtual school primarily enrolls students who can’t attend a traditional school, because they may be homebound by illness, or victims of bullying, “or we have students who are professional models, or they’re trying to get into the Olympics,” says Hollins.

The new law caps the number of virtual schools in the state at ten. Currently the Greenfield school is the only virtual school in Massachusetts.