UP Academy Holland’s turnaround success offers a nuanced lesson on receivership

August 09, 2026

UP Academy Holland’s turnaround success offers a nuanced lesson on receivership

August 9, 2026

By Hillary Casson

The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education recently voted to end state receivership of UP Academy Holland and return the school’s operation to Boston Public Schools. It was a significant moment for a school that, just over a decade ago, was among the lowest performing in the state.

The vote should also prompt a broader conversation.

For the past several years, the dominant narrative surrounding state receivership in Massachusetts has been that it did not work. There is evidence to support that view. Several state takeovers produced mixed results, and the outcomes often fell short of the ambitious promises that accompanied them.

But if the goal is to improve outcomes for students attending chronically underperforming schools, the most important question is not whether receivership succeeded everywhere. It is whether it succeeded anywhere, and if so, why.

UP Academy Holland, soon to return to its original name, John P. Holland Elementary School, deserves to be part of that conversation.

When the school entered receivership, it ranked in the bottom 1 percent of public schools statewide. Today, it is one of the strongest-performing schools in Boston. It ranks second among Dorchester schools in English language arts growth and is among the top-performing Boston Public Schools in ELA and math growth overall. Third-grade students outperform district and state averages in math proficiency among comparable high-needs schools, and multilingual learners exceed district and state peers on ACCESS growth measures.

Most importantly, the school is now positioned to return to district governance while preserving the systems, culture, and instructional practices that drove its improvement.

That outcome matters.

BPS still has more than 40 schools performing in the bottom decile statewide, although the district is implementing numerous strategies to improve performance. Across Massachusetts, educators and policymakers continue to wrestle with the challenge of helping chronically underperforming schools improve. Holland demonstrates that meaningful transformation is possible. The question is why.

I have spent much of my career at Holland, first as a member of the founding leadership team, then as principal, later supporting the development of school leaders, and now as CEO of UP Education Network, the organization that partnered with BPS to manage the school during receivership.

No single curriculum, training, or intervention transformed Holland. The theory of change was more fundamental, and frankly, isn’t glamorous nor particularly innovative: create clarity about excellence, build systems aligned to that vision, and develop the capacity of leaders to improve teacher practice through sustained coaching and feedback. We were steadfast in our belief in the power of these elements, and over time, those elements did in fact reinforce one another and produced improvement that could last beyond any one leader or organization.

Looking back, three broader lessons stand out.