Superintendent Newsletter

Dear Lansing School District Community,

I hope this newsletter finds you well. As always, it is a pleasure to be writing to you all. Today, I want to talk about Rev. Dr. Clyde Carnegie and the power of being a principal. As many of you know, Principal Carnegie passed away this week at the age of 80. I had the privilege of meeting and getting to know him during my time here in Lansing. In fact, I was just with him on Tuesday at the Latino Recognition Ceremony. Even two days before his death, he was at our schools, praising our students and imparting words of wisdom to us all.

Dr. Carnegie was a great man who worked for decades to nurture, empower, and support generations of our students. His role as the Principal of Sexton High School gave him the opportunity to set a culture for the entire building and the larger Sexton community. A positive and powerful principal can chart the direction of a school like no other position; supporting educators, students, and families alike; setting high standards of expectations, and wanting all students to attend school every day and graduate in four years. Staff and students alike wanted to perform; they wanted to succeed because that was an expectation under Principal Carnegie.

The importance of not only being a principal during the day but being an active member of the community allowed him to have an even greater impact on our students and families. Dr. Carnegie might see you in the supermarket or at church; he might run into you at a school event or a community event. And every time he saw you, he would have positive words. He helped keep the Lansing community strong. I hope that all our district employees, no matter their position, try to emulate Principal Carnegie by seeing themselves as part of the social fabric of Lansing, not just as employees. For our district to truly be great, each of us needs to see us as a part of the larger picture of Lansing, representing the school district to the world.

As we try out best to wipe away the difficult memories of the COVID epidemic, it is important that we recognize the hurt our community felt. Not being able to work together, eat together, play together, and go to school together caused a rift among us. We didn't know each other as well. In the school district, we spent 18 months in isolation, working remotely and interacting through screens and email. The next year, we were behind the mask, unable to show facial expressions or gather around the rug in an intimate way for storytime. But now that we are moving forward, with weekly COVID rates in the single digits, we would be rewarded to remember Principal Carnegies lasting legacy of community. Even after his retirement from the district, he remained active, attending events and speaking to staff and students alike. The importance of creating belonging and mutual appreciation for everyone to succeed in Lansing is what will make us succeed. I hope we can honor Dr. Carnegie's legacy by following in his footsteps and supporting the school district in supporting all of our students and staff.

You will be missed, Principal Carnegie.

Thank you so much for all of your incredible support of our district. Together, we will do great things for the children of Lansing.

Benjamin Shuldiner, Superintendent

Lansing School District

Olivia Sampaio is a Post Oak 7th grader who attends the new Student Development Program at the Don Johnson Fieldhouse nearly every day! She is currently participating in basketball, volleyball, and strength and conditioning training in the program. She is always eager to lend a helping hand and encourages other students to achieve their goals all while working on — and achieving — her goals.

Olivia is a dedicated, hard-working athlete who demonstrates the skills and personal characteristics to be a successful team player and plans to play on the basketball team next year. Olivia is joined every day by her brother, Washington, a 9th grader at Eastern High School. The duo's mom has even joined the fun and often provides transportation — not just to Olivia and Washington though, she often helps other students to get to the Student Development Program, too!

We are happy to have Olivia — and her family — as part our Student Development Program family!

If you are a teacher, principal, or secretary in any of the Lansing School District’s academies or middle years schools and someone asked you what random acts of kindness looked like, you’d probably say that they look an awful lot like Michelle Baumgart, the district’s Academy and Middle Years Instructional Coach Leader. Baumgart came highly recommended as a staff feature for teacher appreciation week because she goes above and beyond to show her thanks and appreciation of everyone she meets — especially those teachers lucky enough to say they are in her grade band.

Allison Hansen, 5th Grade Teacher at Pattengill Biotechincal Magnet School wrote to us about a handful she has witnessed from Michelle over the years. The event that compelled Hansen to reach out was witnessing the 15 year district veteran bringing a bouquet of flowers to a first year teacher who had been having a tough couple of weeks. The teacher, who was on the verge of tears upon receiving the flowers, showed them to Hansen at the end of the day. This reminded her of other things she had seen Baumgart do for various people. Hansen herself had been the recipient of a kind email, and a paper card sent to her via district courier each time Baumgart sent another teacher to her classroom. Baumgart even went out of her way to drop chocolate off to Hansen while visiting with other new teachers she had scheduled meetings with a few times.

“Michelle is so appreciative for all of the people who work with her and she constantly shows her appreciation. A snail mail card that is handwritten is a rare commodity these days and to me always means so much,” said Hansen who then wrote about a visit to Wexford the pair had made together to do some modeling in another teacher’s classroom. Michelle brought this teacher donuts and an orange juice to start his day off on a positive note.

Allison provided a list of teachers across the district who all had glowing things to say about Michelle’s kindness. Ms. Lopez (Attwood), Miss Ash and Miss Payne (Pattengill), Mrs. Dehaan and Mrs. Vukovich (Sheridan) — just to name a few — have all voiced their appreciation of Baumgart’s support in their first years of teaching. Many of them mentioned that their first year was trying, and that Michelle’s kindness often gave them the boost they so desperately needed at just the right time. They all spoke of how much they have learned and grown as teachers under Baumgart’s wing.

Of course, we were curious, and had to know more. How, in a world where nothing ever seems to cease moving, does someone find time to slow down enough to hand write a thank you card in addition to a kind email? Turns out it’s having a solid role model in the form of a 37 year special ed teacher for a mother, and plenty of intention.

“Schedule that time and make it a priority. Maybe it’s before you start your day you take and have a box of thank you cards sitting on your desk and maybe it’s just Thank You Tuesday,” said Baumgart. “Every Tuesday is Thank You Tuesday and I’m going to pull out a thank you card and I'm going to write it to one person thanking them for something or just showing appreciation for something you've noticed that they've done recently.”

Michelle has her teachers fill out a littler survey at the beginning of the year that asks them what their favorite drink, or favorite salty snack, or favorite sweet is. She can then look at that before she heads to the school. Knowing the reason behind the meeting that is scheduled she can gauge if someone may need a pick me up, and, if so, what might make them smile. “These gestures have meant so much,” said Hensen.

Everyone must love someone as kind as Michelle, right? Amazingly, there are a few who haven’t. But you’re not going to catch her letting that bring her down. When negative people crop up, she says that even though it’s a bit cliché, it’s easier to kill them with kindness and recognize that everyone has their own demons. So, if someone is unkind to you it’s usually a little deeper, and not necessarily as personal as it may feel. She would even try to uncover what that is and help support them.

“Maybe that person who just gestured inappropriately at the stop light is coming from an appointment where they were told they have something terminal — you just don’t know,” said Baumgart, “So I think just being trying to be kind and if it gets to be too toxic, you can always walk away and try to disengage.

Michelle, for whom the school district was her first job having interned at Verlindin and then being hired the following year, says her favorite part of the workday is working with her team. They coach one another and help each other process stress or issues they are having. She is thankful for the supportive environment, good community, and open line of communication. The Michigan State University alum said that when people, life stress, or tight deadlines are bringing the team down, they try to take it all in stride — and with a good sense of humor.

She wanted to call out the common misconception that instructional coaches are just for teachers who are struggling or people who are struggling in their practice. “If you think about it, the people that are on the top of their game in sports, in business… they ALL have coaches. So, all teachers deserve a coach. They deserve a thought partner. They deserve someone to come alongside them and help them improve in their practice,” said Baumgart who wants district teachers to remember that there is a form to request coaching — just fill it out and the instructional division will reach out and set up a time to meet with you.

Thank you Michelle, for your kindness. We are lucky to have you!

Carley (August) Doerr, Donnie (Adam) Dominion, and Elayna DeLine placed third in the Creative Problem Solving competitive event during the annual State Career Development Conference! Charron Casey, JMG Specialist, is thrilled with their performance, both at the conference and in the program. Congratulations — we are so proud of you!

If you grew up in Lansing any time after 1977, you likely have fond memories of dissecting owl pellets, canoeing, or even snowshoeing at Ebersole Nature Center. To this day Ebersole has been sort of a hidden gem of the Lansing School District, due to its unique location. Situated just South of Grand Rapids, and 75 miles west of headquarters, the sprawling 158 acre property is home to two full miles of accessible boardwalk, six miles of trails, and its very own 14 acre private lake, Jackson Lake.

Thanks in no small part to its namesake, the Ebersole Foundation, the center has been bringing quality environmental education to Lansing students for the last 46 years when it started out as a humble tent-campground. The Ebersole Foundation, via 400 donors, just very graciously gifted another 80 acres to the Lansing School District, bringing Ebersole Nature Center up to an impressive 238 acres!

This amazing gift, coupled with recent investments in its facilities by the Lansing School District will reshape the environmental education program at the Ebersole Center for generations to come.

Thank you to the Ebersole Foundation for their continued support of Lansing youth.

Over the last year, The Urban Assembly has had the incredible opportunity to partner with the Lansing School District on High-Quality Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Implementation, and we will be hosting an SEL showcase on May 17th!

Visit classrooms, and hear how the Lansing School District has built SEL coherence and alignment across schools from both the staff — and student — perspectives! You will also hear how social-emotional skill development is being prioritized in our schools as well as its benefits across our school communities during this showcase.

Don't miss the opportunity to see high-quality SEL in action — you won't regret it!

Celebrate kindness, friendship, and unity from June 1 - August 5

with Capital Area District Libraries' Summer Reading Challenge!

Visit cadl.org/summer for more information and to sign up!