Teachers Urge Transparency in Hiring Schools Chief
The City Council resumed its regular bi-weekly meetings this week.
The Holyoke Teachers Association wrote to the City Council, urging the governmental body to hold a transparent process in the hiring of the city’s first fully accredited Superintendent since the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education took over nine years ago, appointing chiefs with and without certification to run the schools.
The letter states, in part:
“Hiring a superintendent of schools—the city’s first in more than 9 years — is just such a crucial decision that deserves a robust community discussion.
While Anthony Soto has provided valuable leadership in moving Holyoke Public Schools out of receivership, it would not be fair to him, the educators, the students and the families of Holyoke to automatically appoint him as the new superintendent. The members of the Holyoke Teacher Association are urging the School Committee to engage in a transparent and authentic hiring process, and we hope that Mr. Soto participates in that process.
Even more importantly, we want the School Committee to invite the community into this process. The hiring of a new superintendent is our first test as a community taking back control of our public schools. The HTA wants this essential hiring to be a process that establishes how decisions are made. For these reasons, the members of the HTA are calling on the School Committee to launch an authentic search and hiring process when Holyoke Schools exit receivership for filling the role of superintendent.”
The council voted to forward the letter to the Joint City Council & School Committee.
In another matter, apparently someone posted on their social media allegations that the absence of city councilors at the Puerto Rican festival event was because of racism.
City Councilor Kevin Jourdain
City Councilor Kevin Jourdain took umbrage at an unnamed fellow city councilor who spread rumors about him and other councilors who did not attend the official opening of the recently-held Fiestas Patronales.
The festival in Holyoke is a Christian-based production with music and food. In Puerto Rico, Fiestas Patronales historically is celebrated in each of the 78 municipalities, offering the public secular music and dance, a variety of art by artesans registered with the Puerto Rico Institute of Culture (Catholic saints sculpted in wood, leather wallets and belts, traditional sweets, colorful masks made from gourds and coconuts, and other artifacts that celebrate the African, Indigenous and Spanish fusion in Puerto Rico) and criollo, or creole, food. Every municipality has its saint. But the festival long ago stopped being Christian-themed and became a secular event for all people.
Más información aquí en español. More info here in English.
The Fiestas Patronales in Holyoke focus on the Christian faith, and much of it, including musicians, focuses on the evangelical Christian faith.
Jourdain and other councilors were accused of showing “disrespect” to the Fiestas by not attending. Jourdain said that councilors were notified of an invitation from Mayor Joshua García mere hours before the event, and could not attend; a simple matter of conflicting schedules.
An angry Jourdain fired back, saying: “Whenever I see untruths, whenever I see misleading statements, whenever I see attacks against colleagues on this body, the more these people tell mistruths, I will tell the truth in this room, and I will bring them every time forward as I will do right now.”
The agenda for the meeting can be found here.
The documents presented to the City Councilors are here.
