HOLYOKE — Almost a decade after the state took control of Holyoke Public Schools through the controversial and rarely used receivership model, the district is now on the path back to local control.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education took Holyoke’s schools into receivership in April 2015, citing “chronic underperformance” in indicators such as test scores and graduation rates. Holyoke is one of only three districts currently in receivership, joined by Lawrence and Southbridge Public Schools, where the state board of education and an appointed “receiver” make decisions about the district, with powers exceeding those held by the locally elected school committee.

The takeovers are controversial in a state with a tradition of local control, and all three districts — all of which have high percentages of students of color, English language learners and special education students — have sought ways out of receivership.

Former DESE Commissioner Jeff Riley deferred on a decision to release Holyoke from receivership last month, but after leaving office in mid-March his successor took steps immediately to begin moving the city back into local hands.

“The day that you asked me to step up as acting commissioner, I reached out to the mayor and the vice chair of the school committee to ask to engage with him in earnest about this topic,” Acting Commissioner Russell Johnston, who took over the education department following Riley’s resignation on March 15, said at a Tuesday morning board of education meeting.

Johnston met with the Holyoke School Committee and mayor on Monday night for the first of several meetings to put the district on a plan out of receivership.

“Are you saying that you are officially recognizing that we’re entering the transition process to exit receivership?” Holyoke School Committee Vice Chair Erin Brunelle asked Johnston at the Monday night meeting.

“We are officially entering the transition process to return to local control,” Johnston replied, smiling at the local officials. To the board of education, he called the news a “happy note.”

Johnston will work with the local school officials and appointed receiver Anthony Soto to create a plan to transition the district, with a goal to put it in place by August of this year.

The acting commissioner said they will have six public meetings over the next five months to work on the transition.

“I brought along, like a good bureaucrat, copies of our regulations, because there’s important information in the regulations about the way in which the commissioner can extend provisions of the turnaround plan post-receivership, and what we did together last night is talk about that further, to say there are important things going on in Holyoke — from the youngest students, the expansion of early education, early preschool seats, to make preschool more universal in Holyoke — to our oldest students, thinking about how we can create more pathways and particularly early college experiences,” Johnston said.

Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia attended Monday night’s meeting to discuss how to continue to improve upon recent advances in the district, the acting commissioner said.

“I could not have been happier that that was the very first topic that they wanted to take on together,” he said.

The first of the six public meetings to draft a transition plan is on April 8.

Board Chair Katherine Craven said the plan was “very promising,” and that she was happy to hear that there were “tangible strategies” for the district to continue to improve post-receivership.

Michael Moriarty, a member of the board who served on the Holyoke School Committee for 13 years, said he was impressed with Johnston’s work just a few days on the job.

“I think we are in very good hands,” Moriarty said. “I want to just publicly state this, I’m not viewing this as a placeholder leadership at all. You have obviously demonstrated that with what you did last night. I had no comments just now because I was busy basking.”