Capitol News

The Lansing School District Board of Education received an update on school facilities from its administration at a recent meeting, which is available to watch on YouTube.

Superintendent Benjamin Shuldiner, Deputy Superintendent Jessica Benavides and Chief Operating Officer Kristina Tokar gave a presentation on the entire district and how they want to redistribute and improve all the schools.

Many of the older buildings are only at half capacity, and while they are completely up to code, are not as welcoming and bright as the newer buildings. Shuldiner shared his plans to tear down Willow, redesign and rebuild the whole school instead of abandoning it. Building a new school elsewhere was typically the method of operations in the district.

“Since I've gotten here, you know, 16, 17 months ago, I've been talking to parents," Shuldiner said at the meeting. "We did surveys. A lot of these are not direct quotes -- I want to be very clear -- but it is very much what they are saying to us. 'We want the seventh and eighth graders out of the high schools.' 'We want the buses to be more reliable.' I think that one actually is a direct quote.”

This plan will extend to a lot of the older buildings, which are less than 5 miles away from new buildings. They will shift students into the new buildings to renovate older facilities. Shuldiner also wants to shift some of the preschools, possibly from Willow into Kendon, and have a continuous 3-K education in the building, while also partnering with the Head Start program.  

“I hate sending my children to three different schools," Shuldiner said in the meeting. "It's hard to manage the many bell times. We want more access to arts, music and physical education. And you can tell like these are... this is reality. I don't think anybody's going to dismiss these things from parents. So how can we think about that? I guess I can go back.  So if this is what parents have said and we want to listen to parents, if these are the things that we want to have a more robust school experience and we want to align with our framework for grade schools and our strategic plan, then we've got to think critically about the kind of schools that can accommodate this vision.”

Another perk of the school consolidation is that it will be combining more grades into one building, which means less busing and less running around for parents of multiple kids. They can all attend school at the same building, instead of three separate ones. This change should keep more students and parents in the district because it will be easier for them and it's based on a community-building model.