HOLYOKE — The City Council and School Committee have appointed a new Ward 3 representative to the School Committee.
In a joint meeting of both bodies on Thursday, four ballots were required before 12 of the elected officials coalesced around Yadilette Rivera-Colón, a Bay Path University biology professor who has served as board president for Girls Inc. of the Valley and in other civic roles. Rivera-Colón will immediately replace Rebecca Birks, who won election to the seat in 2019 but is moving out of the city. Birks’ husband, Dennis, had held the seat since 2008 when he was first appointed.
Speaking before the City Council and School Committee on Thursday, Rivera-Colón introduced herself as “doctor,” which she said was because of her background as someone who grew up in Puerto Rico and is now a Latina scientist.
“There’s not many people with my background who get to be doctors and to me it’s really important to have representation,” she said. “Especially for children because they cannot be what they cannot see.”
Rivera-Colón came to the area for her doctoral studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which she completed in 2013. She is a homeowner in Holyoke and said that she will soon have a young child in the Holyoke Public Schools.
Asked by School Committee Vice Chair Mildred Lefebvre about her thoughts on Holyoke’s schools being in receivership, Rivera-Colón said that control should return to the city’s elected officials.
“I think that one big part of that is having a plan and we need to really have people, elected officials who serve, who are going to advocate to the state to really get us out of receivership,” she said.
Holyoke’s schools have been under state control since 2015, meaning that the powers normally granted to the locally elected School Committee are instead concentrated in the hands of a state-appointed receiver-superintendent.
Other candidates who came forward for the appointment included retired firefighter Lawrence Jackson; Hannah Kennedy, who has been involved with the parent teacher association at Joseph Metcalf School where her children attend; and Faizul Sibdhanny Jr., who has run several times for School Committee after having served himself as the student representative to the body when he was in high school.
On the first ballot, Rivera-Colón received nine votes, Jackson six and Kennedy four. Because there are 23 total members of the City Council and School Committee, candidates had to receive 12 votes in order to be named as Ward 3’s newest representative.
On the fourth ballot of the night, Rivera-Colón received exactly 12 votes.
Birks was elected again in 2021 for a two-year term. Rivera-Colón will now finish out the remainder of that term.
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.