ON AUGUST 25, over 500 middle school students in Holyoke filed into the newly built William R. Peck Middle School – the first new public school built in the city since 1989 – to start their first day of classes.

The facility’s modern amenities – a science lab stocked with 3D printers, a media center with a library that will soon be filled with books, and a new fitness center – are providing learning and enrichment opportunities to kids in one of the state’s most disadvantaged school districts, where nearly 84 percent of students are low-income and 90 percent are considered high-need.

The expansive courtyard, newly constructed classrooms, large windows, and wide, spacious hallways are just some of the brand-new building’s features.

“There’s a sense of pride that kids have when they walk into Peck. Like, ‘Oh my god, my community cares about me,’” said Anthony Soto, interim superintendent of Holyoke Public Schools.

But as those students enjoy a state-of-the-art facility, the other half of the district’s middle school students aren’t so lucky. Instead, they file into Clare P. Sullivan Middle School, a building constructed in 1961 that was originally built as an elementary school.

In 2019, Holyoke set out to build two new middle schools for all of the students to replace their dated facilities. After months of heated debate, the ballot measure to fund the project was voted down by the community, and the city was forced to continue with the construction of just one school – all they could afford. Some say the outcome is a testament to how limited fiscal capacity, an insufficient state funding formula, and local tax constraints work to prevent Gateway Cities like Holyoke from building equitable, modern school facilities.

But many community members and local officials also argue that racial bias has long prevented the city from investing in its public schools, and it wasn’t the first time property tax overrides have been divisive for the community.

Former superintendent Stephen Zrike, who led the district at the time of the 2019 debt exclusion, lamented the fact that only half of Holyoke’s middle school students ended up in a new building.

“I’m sure it creates inequities that I know many people in Holyoke would like to see addressed,” Zrike said. “All those kids deserve the state-of-the-art schools that more affluent districts have around the state.”

The Massachusetts School Building Authority’s 58 percent reimbursement rate for the 2019 construction plan for two new middle schools fell short of the 80 percent guaranteed in state law. The city’s anticipated contribution of $54 million for the nearly $130 million project required an increase in local property taxes. The total cost of the new Peck school was $85 million, with the MSBA ultimately reimbursing 68 percent of project expenses.

The state has generally failed to meet the 80 percent contribution outlined for urban districts, which have, on average, received a smaller share of their statutory reimbursement rate than suburban districts, according to an October report by the MassINC Policy Center. (The MassINC Policy Center is part of the same organization that publishes CommonWealth Beacon.) The report also found that wealthier districts accounted for a disproportionate share of school building projects approved by the MSBA over the last decade.

Proposition 2½, a 1980s-era state law asserting that property tax levies in cities and towns can’t rise faster than 2.5 percent per year, ultimately required the city of Holyoke to go to local voters to approve or reject a debt exclusion – a temporary increase in the tax levy that allows a city to borrow for a specific capital purpose – to fund the construction of both schools in 2019. The measure was defeated by a two-to-one margin.

City officials, school leaders, and some residents assert that decades of racial bias and poor perceptions of Holyoke’s public schools played a role in the failed debt exclusion. More than 81 percent of students in the district are Latino, and less than 11 percent of its middle school students met or exceeded expectations on statewide MCAS exams in 2025.

“There might have been, over the course of our history, some institutionalized and structural racism involved in the disinvestment in our school district,” Mayor Joshua Garcia said.

A Proposition 2½ override vote in 1992 similarly caused controversy in Holyoke. The proposed tax increase for schools failed, while increases for other city departments passed.

“Our schools are becoming predominantly Hispanic, and we’re seeing these kids get out of school – for the most part, they’re not doing anything,” a Holyoke police officer said during a 1992 news segment. “The people that are paying the bill are not Hispanic and are looking at it saying, ‘Why should we be paying to have some kids that can’t even speak English when they get out of school?’”

Three decades later, local leaders say not much has changed.

“This stuff that you heard back then you still hear today. Voting down those two buildings is when it reared its head again,” Soto said. “You have that loud minority that’s saying, ‘Why do we have to build schools for these kids?’”

While overall voter turnout was just 29 percent in the 2019 local election, the two highest-income wards in Holyoke had the largest turnout at 40 percent and 46 percent. Both wards voted the measure down by three-to-one and two-to-one margins.

More than 400 students per year have been opting out of the Holyoke school system through school choice, according to the district. The students who leave are far more likely to identify as white and far less likely to identify as low-income. Those students most often choose to attend Easthampton Public Schools, where two new school facilities have been built.

“In Holyoke, there’s a lot of homeless families, there’s a lot of families who are renters … These folks are recent arrivals, they’re immigrants. But those kids deserve a brand-new school as much as anybody,” Zrike said.

Latasha Hinton, a mother of two middle school students in Sullivan, said her children feel left behind, and have asked if they can attend the new Peck school.

“For a kid, it kind of feels like, ‘How come we don’t deserve the same thing?’” Hinton said. “They didn’t do anything to not deserve to have everything that is in that new middle school. They kind of feel like they don’t deserve it, and they want to know why.”

The school library in Sullivan had to be converted into classroom space – a key learning feature Hinton said her daughter misses out on. The hallways are narrow, and other amenities are dated. The school was built for elementary school students, meaning building features like the cafeteria stage are smaller in size.

Hinton wasn’t surprised when the plan to build two schools was voted down. She even considered leaving the district like other families did, she said.

The city, in partnership with the MSBA, has spent millions in the last few years on repairs and upgrades to Sullivan, including new windows, doors, roofing, and heating and cooling systems. The district has also made efforts to provide more amenities at Sullivan, such as an outdoor basketball court. But some have argued that investing in dated buildings that already don’t meet modern needs may not be the most efficient use of public funds.

“If we wanted to do a complete renovation project for this school through the MSBA to bring it up to code, it would cost just as much money as tearing it down completely and building brand new,” Soto said of Sullivan.

According to the MassINC report, Gateway Cities have been significantly underrepresented in the MSBA’s Core Program, which distributes large grants to help districts build new schools or fully replace or renovate existing buildings. The authority approved Core Program awards for an average of 17 projects each year between 2008 and 2024 – a pace that would take nearly 50 years to rebuild all 276 high-need schools in Massachusetts.

“There’s huge risks in not investing in the … program that the MSBA has,” Zrike said. “That was a concern we had all along – that it didn’t matter what you did to Sullivan or any other school. It wasn’t going to provide the same facility that a brand-new school would provide.”

The MSBA’s funding is tied to sales tax revenue growth, which has not kept pace with the rising cost of school construction in Massachusetts. State law also places a cap on the authority’s borrowing authority, which was raised to $1.2 billion in the 2024 state budget.

Five of Holyoke’s 11 schools received low building condition ratings in a 2016 MSBA survey, yet just one has been rebuilt since then.

Without “more money in the pot,” school leaders like Soto are skeptical that the MSBA can keep up with the need for modernized buildings in Gateway Cities like Holyoke. Tweaking the formula to require 80 percent reimbursement in urban districts without increasing the MSBA’s overall spending authority would only further limit the number of projects they can fund, he said.

Debt exclusions and overrides aren’t easy to pass in low-income cities like Holyoke with limited room to generate tax revenue, and as construction costs have soared following the pandemic, Zrike estimates it has become even harder. Even in a world where Proposition 2½ didn’t exist, Soto said Holyoke would still be between a rock and a hard place.

“If it goes to a vote, it won’t be successful, and if it didn’t have to go to a vote, and it was just a mayor’s choice, at some point families are going to move out of Holyoke because they can’t afford it,” he said. “It would still be an increase in in taxes to the local community who doesn’t have much.”

The district has struggled with staff retention, which Soto believes better building conditions could help solve.

“A community investing in those spaces I would imagine has an impact on a teacher being like, ‘I want to work here and stay here,’” Soto said. “That has an impact on student outcomes.”

School conditions also matter to parents deciding which districts to send their kids to, Zrike said. Desegregating the urban district and increasing enrollment depends on its ability to build facilities that families want to choose.

“The building doesn’t teach kids directly, but I do think it sends really important messages to kids and families about how much a community values education,” Zrike said.