Dear Lansing School District Community,

I hope this newsletter finds you well. As always, it is a pleasure to be writing to you all. This week, we made a very important and long-ranging decision for the future of the Lansing School District and the entire Lansing community. On Friday, we announced the merging of six schools into three. Starting next school year (August 2023), current students at Willow will go to Riddle, learners at Kendon will enroll at North, and the young scholars at REO will attend Attwood.

I think leaders from other districts would describe this decision as "hard." Truly, when you shut down a school, it can greatly impact the families, the staff, and the surrounding community. However, many times school closures are done for expeditious reasons, solely. Or the votes by Boards are taken under duress because of impending crisis.

However, this time, I am proud to say that though this decision is impactful, it was not a hard decision to make. Why? Because it is what is best for kids. As we continue to put students at the center of our focus, actions become clearer. When you have only one lodestone attracting your attention, it actually makes the choices easier.

We have tried our best to talk to all stakeholders about these changes with a clear, cogent, and concise rationale. We held individual meetings with the principals of the impacted schools, we held full faculty meetings with the associated schools, and we held parent meetings at each building before we ever went to the media or the general public. Rather than make announcements by press release, we had personal, in-person conversations with those schools and their community. We, as a school district, need to always make sure that we are treating people with humanity, especially those impacted the most.

However, now that the decision has been made and we explained it publicly to the community via a board presentation on Thursday (below) and a long press conference on Friday, which you can all watch online (below), I, of course, wanted to explain, via the weekly newsletter, how we came to this decision. For a more in-depth response, please read the Powerpoint and watch the press conference.

If we put students first, we want to make sure that all students are in the best buildings possible. Currently, we have some schools that have air-conditioning, new classrooms, new technology, and new outdoor space. If those buildings have the capacity, it makes perfect sense to move students to those buildings, especially if their current schools are close by. (All of the school mergers are between schools less than 2 miles away)

If we put students first, we want to make sure that all students get as many services, supports, and specials as possible. With small schools, we can't have full-time art or music, or physical education teachers. Libraries tend to be understaffed. Low-enrolled buildings don't have full-time social workers or counselors. By merging schools and creating more robust learning environments, we are able to have more full-time rather than itinerant staff. This creates better relationships between faculty and students, and it allows for a more cohesive staff overall, as well as better educational engagements for students.

If we put students first, we want to have strong community-school ties, where families have relationships for years with the adults in the school. These mergers will create K-8 schools. Now, families that have kids in different grades can send them all to one school. Transportation and other logistics become easier. If you have three students, rather than pick up three students at three schools at three different bell times, now you can drop them all off at once. Rather than have three different buses pick up from the same house and drop students off at three different schools, now we can have one bus pick up all three students and drop them off at one school. It makes everyone's life a lot easier.

If we put the students first, we will use all of our space wisely. We are merging Willow into Riddle so we can build a brand-new Willow. We don't want kids going to school in a construction zone if we can help it. Sadly, as many of you know, this district has a history of closing schools down and either selling them or letting them just sit vacant. Well, we are not going to do that. For weeks we have been working behind the scenes so that next year REO, the school building, will become a partnership between the school district and the Lansing Promise, where we will jointly turn REO into a community center providing space for non-profits and the Promise to serve students and families. Kendon will be a joint collaboration between Head Start and the district, where we will have Head Start programming as well as district pre-K. I am incredibly thankful for our relationship and partnership with both the Promise and Head Start. Those two amazing organizations will help make these school mergers even better for our community.

There are so many more great reasons for the mergers, but this newsletter is already a little too long. Please watch the press conference and view the PowerPoint for more information. As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Benjamin Shuldiner, Superintendent

Lansing School District

Ornella Nishimwe is a sweet, kind Attwood 6th-grade scholar. She has been a fantastic student since she came to Attwood as a 4th grader. Ornella is a driven, hard-working student. She is always aware of what is going on in the classroom and pulls others along to stay focused and try their best.

Ornella’s favorite subject is math because “it’s easy, and it’s the same everywhere. It’s really interesting and fun to learn.” Ornella says school is all about education. She wants to learn to be a better teacher and make something out of herself. School teaches her a lot, and that’s where she wants to be, somewhere where she can learn.

Ornella shows our ROARS every day by having ownership and respect. Her teacher adds, “Ornella is great to have in class. She always contributes to the subject taught, stays on task, and excels on assignments. We are proud to have Ornella at Attwood in our 6th-grade classroom.”

We are so grateful that she is an Attwood Tiger!

Cumberland Elementary nominated Jalene Trew for our staff feature this week. Jalene has spent over 30 years with the district, exactly half of which she has been the instructional assistant at Cumberland - a position that she started in 2007.

Jalene is ready to help in any way she can and is always willing to try new things. She started the school's recycling program, and with the help of the third graders, still runs the program to this day. She also took care of Fred, Cumberland's beloved iguana, for 13 years.

Jalene goes above and beyond for Cumberland students, giving countless hours to help run the school's after-school programs over the years, so it should come as no surprise that she is a favorite adult to many students in the building, both in the classroom and out.

The Cumberland family is very lucky to have her.

This week, Lansing State Journal's Matthew Dae Smith penned a story about Simon Donald — a man he dubbed "Lansing's eldest crossing guard." Donald may not be directly employed by the Lansing School District, working instead for All City Management Services, but he has been making sure that Gier Park Elementary students crossing the intersection at North Turner and Gier streets make it to school safely for well over 20 years.

At 82, he may be the eldest of the 27 employees on his supervisor's team, but you would never guess it by interacting with him. Supervisor Patti Buyck can count on one hand how many days he has missed and still have fingers left over, saying "You couldn't ask for a better person or employee." Buyck's sentiments ring true for many Gier parents - many of whom remember Donald fondly from when they themselves were students navigating the dangerous intersection on the way to school.

Gier Park parent Chelsey Carlson had an ah ha moment last fall when she recognized Donald's voice as she crossed with sons Gabriel, 6, and Jonas, 5. Carlson who had to tell her friends about the comforting discovery: "It's great knowing he is still out there after all these years."

Exactly how many years "all these years" constitutes varies depending on who you ask. Donald said he has been a crossing guard for about 23 years, but Buyck thinks she has worked with him for at least 28. Numbers aside, it has been a long watch, and it is quite clear that Donald has been a well-loved fixture in the Gier neighborhood the whole time.

For more photos and a video click here.

The Lansing School District Board of Education and district administrators thanked departing board president Gabrielle Lawrence and trustee Amy Hodgin for their years of service during this week's board meeting.

Thank you, President Lawrence (above center) and Trustee Hodgin for your dedication to our youth, and CONGRATULATIONS to President Lawrence who will be joining the Ingham County Board of Commissioners representing the 10th district.