Holyoke Public Schools has been awarded $500,000 in renewal funding from the Barr Foundation to continue supporting leadership development for instructional leaders and teachers, in partnership with the Relay Graduate School of Education.
“HPS has previously received funding from Barr in pursuit of transformative change in instructional leadership, classroom teaching, and student learning,” said Executive Director of School Leadership Jacqueline Glasheen. “Thanks to that funding, we have been able to offer career-changing training and support for district and school leaders over the past three years,” she noted, including:
Completing Instructional Leadership and Inclusive Schools Institutes, with more than 70 district directors, school administrators, and expert teachers participating;
Designing and delivering professional learning to all teachers on high-leverage instructional strategies; and
Providing weekly coaching sessions to school leadership teams focused on high-impact observation and feedback, and data and planning meetings.
“Through the process of doing this work, HPS has effectively changed how district and school leaders think about and organize instructional leadership, how teachers plan for instruction, and how leaders and teachers use feedback and student data to better support academic success,” said Superintendent Anthony Soto. “We are now seeing the impact of this work on our students’ performance.”
For example, during the 2023-24 school year, HPS saw the following improvements:
STAR Early Literacy (K-1) saw a 29-point gain in proficiency from the beginning to the end of the year. DIBELS (K-2) also showed gains from the beginning to the end of the year, with a 15-point increase in students at or above benchmark.
More students performed at grade level on the STAR end-of-year assessment, with a 7-point increase in reading and a 9-point increase in math.
Since 2016, the Barr Foundation has provided financial and technical support to Holyoke Public Schools for high school redesign and school leadership development.