LANSING, Mich. — The Lansing School District's new superintendent, Ben Shuldiner, said he has 3 key changes he plans to implement to improve the district as a whole.
“I’m really just happy to be here in Lansing to be able to help support this community and our students,” Shuliner said.
Shuldiner said as Lansing’s newest superintendent, he’s beyond optimistic about building up the district. His first change, resuming in-person learning.
“It’s been a tough year and the half,” Shuldiner said. “That’s why today feels all the more that we can announce that we will be opening up school in the Fall.”
“It’s very exciting,” said Lansing School District Teacher Jamie Balanowski. “We can’t wait to get back to the classrooms with students and start rebuilding the community that we have at our schools.”
With in-person learning back, Shuldiner hopes he can convince more families to enroll in Lansing schools. District officials said there’s been a steady decrease in enrollment for years.
In Fall of 2020, enrollment dropped to 9,440 students, which’s well below the over 10,400 students who were enrolled the previous year. Shuldiner said he hopes to plan recruiting events to get more students.
“Our school system is wonderful and not everybody knows that,” he said. “They don’t know about all of the different offerings that we have. So, I’m spending this summer and all year to make the community know what we offer and bring old students back and fresh students.”
Lastly, Shuldiner plans to expand the district’s pre-k program.
What we would need to do is find the space, find the money and find the teachers but I’m committed to this because we need to make sure our students have the best education when they’re super young,” Shuldiner said.
