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MassEdCO Board member receives Gateway Cities Innovation Award

MassINC’s Gateway Cities Innovation Institute recently announced the winners of the 2014 Gateway Cities Innovation Awards. The awards are made annually to organizations and individuals that utilize innovative models to grow the economies of Massachusetts’ Gateway Cities.

“This year’s awards celebrate leaders who have advanced educational excellence in their communities,” said Ben Forman, executive director of the Gateway Cities Innovation Institute, “They each achieved this by working collaboratively to build new learning models that take advantage of unique Gateway City educational opportunities.”

Among the winners is Sergio Paez, superintendent of Holyoke schools and a MassEdCO Board member.  He receives the award for the district’s Early Literacy Initiative, a strategic, community-wide effort to ensure that all children are proficient readers by the end of grade three. With leadership from Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse and Superintendent Paez, civic leaders have built a citywide early literacy taskforce and developed a far-reaching early literacy blueprint. The initiative is working now to implement this strategy with program development, marketing and evaluation.

MassINC is an independent think tank using non-partisan research, civic journalism and public forums to stimulate debate and shape public policy. 

For more information on the awards, visit the MassINC website.

Release Date: 
October 9, 2014