Free visits for active-duty and veteran military families will be offered by the Grand Rapids Children’s Museum during its upcoming Military Weekend.
SpartanNash has partnered with the museum for this event in honor of Veterans Day. A military or veteran’s ID will be required for free admission. It is a privilege “to serve those who served,” said Meredith Gremel, SpartanNash spokesperson.
In one of the weekend activities, all children will be able to make cards to be delivered to the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans.
Maggie Lancaster, GRCM executive director, said the museum is glad to be able to give back to the community, “especially to those who have dedicated themselves selflessly by serving in the military.”
The museum at 11 Sheldon Ave. NE is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Early Childhood Center students shrieked as they discovered the tiny inhabitants of Plaster Creek. “I got something! It’s got legs! It’s got legs!” one squealed as she scooped an insect from a mini-pond created over plastic inside a hula hoop.
Samantha Ramirez-Garcia learns about water bugs from WMEAC intern Brooke DeBaar
At themed water stations set up in the school’s Outdoor Learning Lab, students learned about the Plaster Creek Watershed, ecosystems, biodiversity, life cycles, and plastics and other pollutants.
It was all about taking care of their surroundings, said Jessica Vander Ark, director of environmental education for WMEAC. Even the district’s youngest students can be involved in taking care of the creek, which flows through the ECC school yard.
“We think it’s so important that these students are finding out they have a creek they are partially responsible for. Their families and their actions all affect the watershed. We want to start teaching the whole idea of stewardship early… We want them to care about Plaster Creek and the Grand River Watershed.”
Gabriel Quintino examines creek water
Vander Ark takes fourth-graders stream sampling for macro-invertebrates each spring through WMEAC’s program “Teach for the Watershed,” which is run through a partnership with General Motors. Water Day extends teaching about the creek and watershed into earlier grades. “We wanted to find a way to do more and involve more of the students at Godfrey-Lee,” she said.
Preservation and Restoration
Plaster Creek Stewards, a program operated through Calvin College, hosts projects and outreach events to restore the creek, polluted over the years by stormwater runoff that brings contaminants into the creek and excessive sediments.
Program assistant Andrea Lubberts said part of their mission is educating students about how they affect the 58 square-mile watershed and how to reduce water runoff and contamination.
Devin Golden examines what’s in the water
Calvin and Godfrey-Lee Public Schools are both in the Plaster Creek watershed. “We feel very responsible for the health of the watershed because we live here,” Lubberts said. “If students understand that we all live in the watershed and we all affect someone else, we can start taking action.”
Second-grade teacher Lindsay Blume said the day ties in with science standards, including bodies of water and landforms. She said learning about those things right in the school yard is impactful.
“I like when they get outside and learn about the community and see what there is to explore. I hope they get out of it a better understanding of water, and more respect for it.”
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
To learn about an upcoming school bond proposal, high school business students are zeroing in on their neighbors by using the Design Thinking process.
Challenged to work on something real in their own community, students in teacher Jon Bushen’s Business Marketing Management class needed to determine the needs and desires of voters, said Skylar Pichey, co-president and marketing director for the class. She and classmates each interviewed three neighbors by going door-to-door to hear their thoughts on the 18-year extension up for vote Tuesday Nov. 7. The request, if approved, would generate $79.5 million for district-wide facility improvements without raising the tax rate.
Students considered problems, obstacles, needs, insights and themes in creating a plan to reach voters with bond information
Part of design thinking is empathizing, getting to know what your users — in this case, voters– do, say think and feel. It’s an interesting process, Pichey said. Neighbors expressed support, indifference and some negativity when asked for their thoughts on the bond. Students wrote voter ideas and comments on sticky notes to capture what each person said. “We put them all together to examine their insights,” she said.
Teacher Jon Bushen attended a training on Design Thinking in the classroom offered by the the Kent ISD Career Readiness Department last summer. He plans to use it in several ways this school year, but started with the bond, an issue that affects his students directly. Now they have the chance to offer an important student voice in the bond process, Bushen said.
“Most of the students didn’t really know what the bond entailed in depth, so they had to sit with (Superintendent Thomas Reeder) and (Matt Lewis, assistant superintendent for finance and administrative services) and really ask the questions.”
Design Thinking involves creating a plan based on what you’ve learned about your user, and students are reaching out with information to voters. They passed out information and wristbands at the Homecoming Carnival; they are encouraging students who are old enough to vote with the incentive of free pizza if they head to the polls; they handed on Trick or Treat bags with bond information at the school’s Halloween Trunk or Treat event.
Skylar said she’s had to be straight-forward with people that passing the bond is personal to her. “You really have to make it seem like, ‘I really want this to pass. It’s very important to me.'”
Business student Chyna Johnson Pruitt helped pass out Trunk or Treat bags with bond information on the front
Hoping for a ‘Yes”
Skylar said she believes they are having an impact. Neighbors who first said they didn’t see a reason to vote, seemed to listen.
“I think the school really needs this,” Skylar said, pointing out the crammed hallways and poor climate control. “People look down on us because we don’t have money, because we aren’t Grandville and we aren’t Hudsonville (public schools) but we could be that way.”
Business student Albert Zamarripa said using the design-thinking process showed him it’s not simple to assess the community’s perspectives, and that’s taught him a lot about marketing.
“It’s been a great experience to have this as a project. I’ve never been a part of anything about this. To know you did something for this, it just makes you feel that much better.”
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Hector Rodriguez sat with his daughters, Jocelyn, a kindergartner, and Aaliyah, a fifth-grader, munching on breakfast sandwiches and sipping juice.
“I wish Pappi was here for us all day!”Jocelyn said.
Rodriguez said he, too, wished he could stay all day at Southwood Elementary School, because attending the annual Bring Your Fathers to School Day is a special time. “It’s something I love doing for them,” he said. “I like coming to these things to be there for my kids. I like to be there for them as much as possible.”
Marcus Patterson arrives with his daughter Naomi, a kindergartner
The fourth annual event brought more than 1,000 dads, uncles, grandfathers and other male role models to the district’s 10 elementary schools to enjoy breakfast with their children, listen to speakers and celebrate paternal involvement. At Southwood alone, more than 200 male guests attended.
Principal Jeff Overkleeft said involved fathers have a huge positive impact on children’s lives, including behavior, attendance and grades. “It directly impacts their academic success,” he said.
“I think the message that we continue to hear and see is it’s important to have parents and fathers engaged in students’ education,” said Michael Pickard, the district’s executive director of elementary instruction and federal programs.
This year’s theme was leaving a legacy for your child. Speakers were local business owners whose lives were impacted by parents, teachers or other role models.
Before the event, dad Michael Parks walked into school with his daughter, Mya, a fifth-grader.
“It’s just fun to spend time with him,” Mya said.
Michael and Mya Parks arrive for Bring Your Fathers to School Day
$1.48 trillion is the amount of college debt owed by U.S. citizens who’ve had to borrow to attend college. It’s a debt that’s growing at the rate of $2,726 every second, according to the business publication MarketWatch, which makes it likely it will be closer to $1.5 trillion by the time you read this blog.
For comparison purposes, U.S. credit card debt is nearly a half trillion less, pegged by MarketWatch at $1.021 trillion.
So just how much is $1.48 trillion? Enough, Forbes reports, to amount to $4,920 for every person in the United States. If we were to extend this debt worldwide, it would amount to $194 for every human on the planet, or about a third of the annual per capita income in the Central African Republic or the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Michigan’s share of that debt is approximately $5,330 per person. Nationwide, Forbes estimates more than 1.1 million people have college loans between $100,000 and $150,000.
“Houston, we have a problem.” Yes, you do. Texas loans amount to $4,510 per capita.
How can it be that we have accumulated this much in debt and still have businesses groaning about a talent shortage?
That’s a good question.
Some who bear the debt are asking it themselves. Forty-five percent of 1,500 respondents concluded college was not worth the cost when Americans with student debt were surveyed by the Consumer Reports National Research Center.
It’s this mountain of college debt and the rapidly changing job market that prompted nine in 10 respondents to regional surveys conducted by Kent ISD last year to say they wanted greater connections between K-12 education and the world of work.
We’re not alone: 82 percent of the nearly 1,600 adults surveyed for the 49th annual Phi Delta Kappa International Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools said they “support job or career skills classes even if it means some students might spend less time on traditional academics.”
Does that mean students should no longer aspire to attend college?
No.
“College graduates, on average, earned 56% more than high school grads in 2015, according to data compiled by the Economic Policy Institute,” according to USA Today, using the most recent figures available. “That was up from 51% in 1999 and is the largest such gap in EPI’s figures dating to 1973.”
And, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the fastest growing jobs over the next decade will require post-secondary certifications or college degrees of varying durations.
What it does mean is everyone choosing to go to college should have a solid career path in mind.
College is not an end. College is a means to an end. Just half of students entering college leave with a degree after six years. None of those who leave without a degree are prepared for the fastest growing jobs cited in the Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
What Schools Can Do
How can schools help? We can connect students to the world of work, to help them understand the jobs available, to create relevance in their education, and to help them make better choices in their educational and career pursuits after they graduate high school.
Kent ISD school districts, and the school districts in Ottawa and Muskegon area ISDs, are working with the Talent 2025 CEO group to help students make these connections.
Northview is an example of a school district that is making employability skills a measure of student performance. Things like punctuality, the ability to work as part of a team, to communicate and think critically and creatively about real-world problems are among the challenges that will face students in college, in careers, and in the curriculum Northview is developing.
The Kent Career Tech Center is working on a “talent transcript” to house the employability skills, college credits and other credentials earned by students during their high school careers. Kent ISD is also working to bring a career portal to students that will match their knowledge, skills, aptitudes and career aspirations with the region’s employers, so they can match their interests with opportunities.
It’s not the total answer, but it’s a start. You’ll be reading much more about these initiatives and others in School News Network over the next year.
We have to do something. None of our students, nor society, can afford six years in college and six-figure debt without the promise of a high-wage career awaiting their graduation.
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
The shared love of a book was on display in English teacher Shantel VanderGalien’s eighth-grade honors class as she read aloud from “A Monster Calls.” Creating a monster voice with a plummy British accent, VanderGalien revealed her theatrical side.
The young teens, seated in a circle around VanderGalien, interjected with observations like “foreshadowing!” and “simile!” as they listened closely to the narrative.
VanderGalien is devoting about 15 minutes of class time for several days over the next few weeks to read the award-winning book, written by Patrick Ness and illustrated by Jim Kay, to her Wyoming Junior High School students. Riveted, they recently reacted to a chapter-ending cliffhanger at the end of class as if it was /// torture to stop. “Ahhh! No!” they cried, realizing they would have to wait until the next day to know what happened next.
“Everybody likes to be read to,” VanderGalien said.
VanderGalien’s class is among more than 2 million students in 25,000 locations throughout the world signed up for Global Read Aloud, a project started in 2010 with the goal of using one book to connect the world. The premise is to read a book aloud to children during a six-week period and make as many global connections, via online tools, as possible, sharing the book and thoughts. This year, middle school groups had three books to choose from, including “A Monster Calls” — a novel that’s hard to keep on the shelves, VanderGalien said.
“What I wasn’t able to anticipate is the depth of my students’ love for the story,” she said. “Every single time I stop reading, they are like, ‘What! You can’t stop there!'”
Global Rad Aloud connects students around the world through the share loved of books, like “A Monster Calls,”
Picture This
VanderGalien, a 14-year-teacher, said she’s learned over the years why students of all ages connect so well with being read to. It’s made her realize the need to teach vocal inflection and pauses in connection with dialogue and punctuation.
“Students say, ‘I can’t see it in my head when I read, but when you read to me, I can see it,'” she said. “More of how I teach grammar is now embedded in us investigating the reading.”
Students said they enjoy VanderGalien’s dramatic reading.
“I can see it a lot better when she reads it because she does all the voices,” said eighth-grader Aubray Palma. “She is pretty much like a little kid. How she talks like the monster does, that’s what I see in my head.”
Neveah Morofsky said she loves the raspy, scary voice of the monster and the imagination involved.
“I’m a really big reader,” the eighth-grader said. “I read a lot, but it’s a lot of fun having Mrs. VanderGalien read to us. We are thinking of getting her an alphabet rug like we had in kindergarten.
“I really like her reading to us because she does all the voices. She has a lot of fun with it and so do we.”
“We get to learn together as more of a class,” added student Logan Boukma. “For us to be read to, we can understand it better. (VanderGalien) uses cool accents to make it more enjoyable and relatable.”
Another goal is challenging students to summarize, determine themes, analyze texts and complete other required standards using “A Monster Calls.” Students will also use the book in argumentative writing.
A Global Book Club
Global Read Aloud also has a big-picture piece involving universal themes. VanderGalien is hoping great conversations result in connecting online with students in different parts of the world through platforms like Write About.com, Flipogram.com and Google Classroom.
“I really emphasize having a voice in global citizenship. When they start evaluating the themes in the novel and seeing that people halfway around the world are getting the same messages, that’s when global themes become more concrete.”
Students said they look forward to hearing what other students think of the book.
“Everybody gets a different experience from the book and we can talk about it and see where everyone is coming from,” Neveah said.
“They say you should put yourself in other people’s shoes,” Aubray said. “We get to do that and experience what other people think.”
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Students sit in a circle to listen the teacher Shantel VanderGalien read
Maria Aguirre likes to help other people’s dreams come true: making sure a child has presents wrapped under the tree on Christmas morning, doing her part to fund cancer research, helping distribute grants to organizations doing good in her Wyoming community.
Through extensive giving back and taking a leadership role in doing so, she reveals the good in people and the community, making places and people’s days brighter. She’s a leader at Godwin Heights Public Schools, the newly-named president for Student Leadership Council, and continually organizing programs and pitching in on school-wide efforts.
“I like trying to get the better out of the community, and putting forward that good. It makes you feel good about yourself, bringing out what’s better in the world,” Maria said.
Maria is a scholar, a worker, a leader, and a Dreamer.
Godwin Heights High School senior Maria Aguirre has been recognized for leadership by teacher Katie Hoffman
‘It Makes me Feel Torn’
The 17-year-old senior arrived with her parents from Mexico when she was 3-years-old, and hasn’t been back there since. She doesn’t remember their home in Monterrey, the capital of the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León, or what it’s like there.
At age 15, she paid the $495 application fee for protection from deportation and a work permit through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, created under the Obama Administration. She enrolled as a Dreamer, along with her brothers, among 800,000 individuals in the program.
Now, with doubt cast on her permanent status in the U.S. by the Trump Administration, who rescinded the policy in September, Maria’s dreams are hazy. Trump’s decision officially ends the program in March and halts new applications, but those whose permits expire before March 5 can apply for a two-year renewal, which Maria did. (Trump called on Congress to pass immigration legislation to replace it, and tweeted that he will “revisit this issue” if Congress does not act.)
“It makes me worried if in the future I won’t be able to qualify for a replacement of DACA. Would I have to go back to a country that isn’t my country – that I don’t know anything about?
Would-be social worker Maria Aguirre is recognized school-wide for leadership
“It makes me feel torn. It makes me feel depressed.”
But Maria is the kind of person who keeps forging ahead at her school and in the community, despite what her future holds.
Beginning each November since her freshman year, she has been collecting as many toys as possible with the Student Leadership Council for DA Blodgett St. John’s Home. The Council invites Godwin teachers to adopt children at the foster-care facility and have them encourage students to bring in gifts.
Annually, she works with fellow members of National Honor Society to clean up nearby Hillcroft Park. She raises funds for Relay for Life, the annual 24-hour walk to raise money for cancer research. She’s planning an Unsung Heroes Dinner at school to recognize support staff, like janitors and paraprofessionals, who make a difference at the school. Maria gets to church early to help with Sunday School.
An ambitious student, Maria is dual-enrolled at Grand Rapids Community College, where she’ll tally up a year’s worth of college credit by the time she graduates in May. She has a 3.8 grade-point average.
She just joined the Wyoming Community Foundation Youth Advisory Council to help allocate grant money to local nonprofits and works part-time at McDonald’s.
“Maria is a great role model for her peers and is a positive presence in the school,” said Student Leadership Council advisor Katie Hoffman. “She stands out as someone who wants to make a difference and is willing to go above and beyond to make our school and community a better place to be.”
Maria is always looking for new ways to influence and encourage others, Hoffman said. “I know that she will be successful in whatever field she chooses to go into and we are lucky that she has been a part of our Godwin family.”
Maria Aguirre, president of the Student Leadership Council, explains to members how the Christmas adopt-a-child program for D.A. Blodgett-St. John’s Home works
Still Dreaming
Maria’s dreams are to go to Aquinas College or Grand Valley State University to pursue a degree in sociology and become a social worker. She dreams of making life better for people, and first and foremost, helping support her parents financially.
“Ever since I was little, I grew up struggling economically. I want to be able to, in the future, not have my parents have to work anymore,” she said. Her father is a dishwasher and her mother a stay-at-home mom.
She said growing up with limited financial resources made her passionate about doing what she can to get to college. “It was difficult, but you proceed through it and realize you need to get the education to do better.”
Godwin Heights staff members have been supportive, she said. During visits to college campus, counselors ask for any information pertaining to DACA students.
“I feel pretty confident that I am going to start college here. It feels unknown that I am going to finish it here,” Maria said.
When the DACA decision was announced, Maria’s parents were concerned for their children, who they raised as Americans. The family had already taken in children of a deported friend who wondered when their mother would be back. “They were really heartbroken. They were mostly sad.”
Encouraging Others and Getting Things Done
While leading the Leadership Team meeting on a recent Wednesday during lunch in Hoffman’s classroom, Maria told peers the details of the Christmas donation event for D.A. Blodgett-St. John’s Home. The collecting will kick off next month.
Team members said Maria stands out as a leader. As president of the Leadership Council, Maria knows how to get things done, said junior Luz Parada. She is a good example of how to lead a big group and be a positive influence on people. She is very supportive.
“I’ve known Maria for six years. She is my best friend,” said senior Kamille Martinez. “She stands out because she stands up for people no matter what the issue is. She stays ahead of her work. She is an encouraging person to others. She is an amazing person.”
After participating in discussion about popcorn sales and a new idea to greet students in fun ways as they arrive to school on Monday mornings, Maria wrapped up the meeting and prepared to head to GRCC for a college course. Despite what the future holds, she’s choosing a path for her dreams to become reality, being involved, pursuing education and helping others.
“You see all the bad that’s going on and all the suffering and you just want to get away from that and bring out the good that’s still left in the world,” she said.
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Eighth-grader Hien-Tran Bui entered coding commands for her website focused on tips for putting on makeup. She had just learned the basics of site-building from women who work in the Information technology field. Nearby, eighth-grader Mya Proctor designed a website about activities to do when you’re bored.
“I learned how to code and add links,” said Hien-Tran, who realized the information will be valuable in many fields including what she’s interested in: health care.
Eighteen seventh- and eighth-grade girls from Valleywood Middle School recently attended BitCamp, hosted by Software GR, a nonprofit association dedicated to building and supporting the software design and development community in West Michigan. The opportunity at Amway World Headquarters, in Ada, connected girls with women who work in local IT jobs for a day of coding and website creation. Instructors came from Amway, OST, Spectrum Healthand Software GR.
Eighth-grader Sandrine Ishimwe looks at her website with Anna Godfrey, Valleywood guidance secretary
Hien-Tran said she was impressed to learn from women who took various education paths to get to IT careers. Mya, who wants to become a teacher, agreed.
“Before I came here, I didn’t even know what I was doing,” Mya said. “I’m inspired to do more and go beyond my teaching career and do something like this.”
Showing Girls What’s Out There
BitCamp is a great opportunity to get girls out into the IT field, said Nancy McKenzie, Kentwood Public Schools STEM coordinator, who works to connect students with hands-on, real-world experiences. Girls from other Kentwood middle schools, Crestwood and Pinewood, have also attended or will later this semester.
According to Made with Code, while 74 percent of girls express interest in middle school, they at some point get turned off to science, technology, engineering and math careers. Only 0.4 percent of female college freshmen plan to major in computer science, even though CS jobs will be the highest-paying sectors over the next decade, paying almost $15,000 more than average.
“There is quite a lack of women in these fields,” McKenzie said. “And if they are interested, once they go to school and finish college, they can pretty much write their own ticket because there is such a huge gap of females in this industry.”
Having women teach BitCamp shows girls possibilities, she added: “It empowers them. They see these women doing these type of jobs and knowing that it’s something out there that’s needed now and in the future. It gives them exposure to something they can look into later.
From left, seventh-grader Alianny Daniel; Brittany Nielson, application developer for Spectrum Health; and eighth-grader Nhi Tong work on their websites
“It’s nice for the girls to see women that do these kinds of jobs, so they can have a model about what’s possible.”
Eighth-grader Katelynn Smallwood said she liked the in-depth instruction she received from the women. She hopes to be a medical transcriptionist someday.
“It’s inspirational,” Katelynn said. “It’s not just men who can do the job. There are opportunities for women.”
For Girls Too
Instructors, who presented their stories about going through college and into IT fields, said they hope girls start thinking young about going into what are currently male-dominated fields.
Brittany Nielson, application developer for Spectrum Health, said she knows how it feels to be the only girl in the room.
“When you are a woman going into a tech field that’s mostly men, it’s kind of intimidating,” Nelson said. “We want to make sure women are confident in themselves and their skills when they enter that environment so they can come join our workforce.”
Godwin Heights Public Schools Superintendent Bill Fetterhoff, center, listens as Michelle Krynicki director of instruction, and Title III, speaks to the State Board of Education. (Photos courtesy of School News Network.)
Superintendents from five Kent County school districts got the chance on Tuesday to tout their school improvement initiatives, when State Superintendent Brian Whiston and the eight-member State Board of Education visited Kent ISD.
Presenting superintendents were Michael Shibler of Rockford Public Schools; Gerald Hopkins of Kenowa Hills Public Schools; Thomas Reeder of Wyoming Public Schools; William Fetterhoff of Godwin Heights Public Schools; and Kevin Polston of Godfrey-Lee Public Schools.
Each presentation included what those districts are doing around one or more of the goals of the State Department of Education’s “Top 10 in 10” initiative to make Michigan a premier education state in 10 years.
Luke Wilcox, this year’s Michigan Teacher of the Year, also took part as a representative of Kentwood Public Schools.
Kent ISD was the first stop in the state BOE’s new plan to visit two intermediate school districts each year. The board will visit Wayne RESA in February.
Here is a brief summary of the superintendents’ presentations.
Luke Wilcox, Michigan Teacher of the Year, of Kentwood Public Schools, with State Board member Lupe Ramos-Montigny of Grand Rapids.
Rockford Public Schools: Action Model for Success
Since 1989, Rockford has involved the community, businesses, staff and students to help shape the district’s direction and priorities, resulting in three-year strategic plans. The district is currently finalizing its Rams X report for the next three years.
Key to that level of community engagement is accountability, said Superintendent Michael Shibler.
“This is, quite frankly, the reason we are an outstanding school system,” Shibler told board members. “And it fits your plan, the fact that you need to have stakeholder input to accomplish your goals.”
He shared that if an employer tells him an employee who is a Rockford graduate doesn’t have a skill he or she should have gotten in high school, “I’ll bring that student back free of charge to get those skills.”
Wyoming Public Schools Superintndent Tom Reeder tells the board of his district’s efforts to improve reading proficiency.
Wyoming Public Schools: Reading Now Network, Early Literacy and Literacy Coaching
The three components are key to district efforts to improve reading proficiency for all students. Highlighted for the board was the importance and purpose of early literacy work and literacy coaches throughout the buildings.
The district increased its reading scores through its participation in the Reading Now Network, a collaborative effort involving 100 districts to boost reading proficiency to 80 percent in 13 counties. Wyoming’s partnership with RNN also led to a $10,000 grant from the Herman Miller company, to help get more books into classrooms and create a more consistent book-leveling system.
“We all need to own that our students need to be reading much better than they are,” Superintendent Tom Reeder said.
Godwin Heights Public Schools: Fostering Shared Responsibility in School Improvement
After establishing a clear purpose and message about sharing the work of improvement, administrators and instructional coaches lead teams in highly focused learning. That begins with thoroughly understanding a district instructional goal and visiting classrooms to see it in action. Debriefing sessions within groups lead to possible steps for new improvements toward the goal.
Participants walk away with better understanding, new ways to explore meeting the goal, and a renewed sense of shared responsibility for all students to be career and college ready, said Superintendent Bill Fetterhoff.
Fetterhoff said the strategy has three elements: learning labs, where teachers observe, interact with and learn from one another; and administrators are exempt; learning walks, where administrators and instructional specialists create a consistent “lens” to support teaching staff; and school improvement, where participation is a blend of the other groups.
“So we see it in three different ways, but all the ways are there to enhance student achievement — to make our principals, our teachers, our coaches better,” Fetterhoff said. “It’s all about the learning communities and how the different cycles overlap. The greatest part about it is the feedback, and that’s been that they have confidence that we are doing this for the right reasons.”
Godfrey-Lee Public Schools Superintendent Kevin Polston and Assistant Superintendent Carol Lautenbach speak to the State Board of Education, as Michigan Teacher of the Year Lucas Wilcox, right, looks on.
Godfrey-Lee Public Schools: A Broader Definition of Student Success
The district’s design thinking process led to a redesign of its model of student success that addresses the needs of the whole child instead of simply providing content. This includes responding to research that indicates students need the 6Cs — communication, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, confidence and content mastery – for success in the 21st century.
Educating the whole child also means fulfilling needs to ensure students are healthy and ready to learn, through programs like Kent School Services Network.
“First, we determine our values, and then we develop goals around those values,” Superintendent Kevin Polston told board members. “When we think about our traditional way of doing school, we’ve maxed out just about all the ways of tweaking how we’ve done that. We need to look at education through a different lens if we are going to significantly transform what we’re doing.”
Kenowa Hills Public Schools: Competency-based Learning
This paradigm-shifting approach to learning is part of a growing national trend in helping all students reach college and career readiness. In this approach, students move ahead individually as soon as they learn the material, and not together as an entire class. This allows some to move more quickly, while others get the support they need, enabling all to master the content.
The district began this shift in 2012 with K-8 mathematics, and has now implemented it districtwide. Administrators say they consistently see students who are more engaged, learning at deeper levels, and taking more ownership of their learning.
“It’s the reality of what all schools face: students who are not engaged, are not meeting the rigors and demands of school and they don’t know why,” Superintendent Gerald Hopkins said. “We don’t have all the answers, but we want to continue to learn and to keep looking for them.”
State Board members seemed to appreciate being able to meet superintendents on their own turf.
“This is the first time we’ve taken our meeting on the road,” said Eileen Lappin Weiser. “You folks are setting a horribly high standard.”
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Missdalia Rios-Segundo talks to members of Lee Youth Trained to Serve about an upcoming volunteer trip to Feeding America of West Michigan. (Photos courtesy of School News Network)
It’s an extraordinary claim: During her 10 years working with middle school students, Missdalia Rios-Segundo says, not one has ever treated her with disrespect.
But when you meet her, it makes sense.
“They are good kids,” Rios-Segundo said, as if it’s that simple. And, really, it is. Rios, who has worked as a English-language learner paraprofessional at Lee Middle/High School for a decade, is simply kind.
“I’ve never had a situation where I’ve seen a student closed off to her,” said seventh-grade science teacher Janene Parney. “Children kind of sense the character of individuals. She is always so kind and patient and they recognize it and respect her for it.
“I’ve never heard a bad word about her from the students or the teachers, not even a muttering behind her back.”
Instead, students gravitate to Rios-Segundo, Parney said. “It’s nothing but a rally around an individual, completely because of her character.
“She a glue in this school.”
Rios-Segundo works with newcomers to the U.S. in sixth through eighth grades who come from Spanish-speaking countries and other areas of the world. In general-education classes, she helps them comprehend and keep up.
She recently helped sixth-grader Giovanni Chitic with a book in the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series. “She helps me become a better reader,” Giovanni said.
ELL paraprofessional Missdalia Rios-Segundo works with Giovanni Chitic
Rios-Segundo takes notes and completes assignments right along with her students, ensuring that when they ask a question she can help. “I definitely love my job and what I do every day with the kids. I love the interaction,” she said. “If I can make them smile a little, that is good.”
Teacher Emily Colletti said Rios-Segundo uses her special touch to make students feel at ease.
“She provides them with different strategies to be successful. They are very comfortable with her,” Colletti said. “She’s one of the kindest, most compassionate people I’ve ever worked with and she’s always looking for ways to help.”
Shining Bright in the Community
Outside class, Rios-Segundo leads middle schoolers in Lee Youth Trained to Serve, which includes 15 sixth- through eighth-graders who meet regularly for service projects. LYTS recently collected about $135 for DeVos Children’s Hospital by hosting Gridiron Giving at a recent football game, collecting donations in jars and selling doughnuts.
The group is now planning to volunteer at Feeding America West Michigan before beginning their next project, Operation Christmas Child, for which they pack shoeboxes with toys, hygiene items and school supplies for children in other countries. Last year, they collected 150 shoeboxes for the annual project.
Rios-Segundo said she wants middle schoolers to see how they can brighten people’s day.
“I like to help out the community,” she said. “I find so many good people out there and they are helping. I have been in situations when I have gotten help myself. I want the kids to see they can help someone else. We live in a community that’s not the wealthiest, but even if they don’t have a lot we can still give back to somebody.”
Seventh-grader Nuria Pablo said she appreciates the opportunity. “I wanted to join because we are helping kids in need,” she said.
Added seventh-grader Zusette Quinonez, “What I’m looking forward to do is help others and (Rios-Segundo) inspires me because she likes to help others.”
Missdalia Rios-Segundo is known as a pillar at Lee Middle/High School
Once a Newcomer Herself
Rios-Segundo immigrated to the United States at age 9 with her parents and three siblings 30 years ago. They came from Durango, Mexico, for work and education. She lived in California for one year and Illinois for 12 before moving to Michigan 17 years ago, settling in the Godfrey-Lee community with her husband.
Mom to Abel, a Lee High School junior, and Anahi, a Godfrey Elementary School third-grader, she knows what it’s like for students to begin school in a new country. “It was very difficult,” she said.
Now she brings her experiences to students and families, many who use her as a liaison. “I think that is why I love my job — I know where they are coming from.”
The Godfrey-Lee community is family-oriented and that makes it special, she said. “I think it’s the closeness you can get to the families and community. It’s small enough to know everyone. If your children are out with someone you know they are in good company.”
Lee Middle/High School Assistant Principal Rendal Todd said Rios-Segundo is a “pillar in the building.”
“Missdalia always has a positive outlook and comes in every day willing to help the students where they need to have support,” Todd said. “She is very integrated into the community and always willing to help.
“She’s a great natured person to talk to and be around and cares a lot about our children,” he added. “She goes above and beyond without ever being asked.”
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Let’s talk about a glaring example of the disconnect between the workforce and the pipeline of students who will soon enter it.
Last spring, Kent ISD, in partnership with local school districts, area manufacturing representatives, and Grand Rapids Community College, started advertising Launch U. That’s an early middle-college program that puts students directly into training for jobs in manufacturing with local businesses, allowing them to earn a free associate degree and credentials in the field.
AutoCam training director Steve Heethuis talks to Byron Center students about the plant’s operations
One snafu in planning was that partner companies didn’t want to promise to hold off hiring until students completed the program. Take a moment to consider that: The company representatives wanted to be able to hire the students, potentially before they completed the program.
Now consider this: Not enough students enrolled in two of the Launch U programs, precision machining and industrial maintenance, for those programs to start as scheduled in late August.
“We couldn’t get 24 students to sign up,” said Bill Smith, assistant superintendent of instructional services for Kent ISD. The plan is to reintroduce the programs next fall.
Smith said he believes many students aren’t getting the message that there are quicker and more affordable routes than a four-year degree into industries where they can thrive and make high wages. “The system that markets to the kids is still leaning toward ‘every kid of value should go to a four-year institution,'” Smith said.
“Until we change that mindset we are going to have these types of jobs sitting open. This is free education, a free associate’s, free workplace-recognized credentials in fields where you are going to get a job and that job is going to pay $80 K.”
AutoCam machinist Richard Tobias shows a part to students including, from left, sophomores Carter hickson and Spencer Julien.
Jobs are Unfilled
Smith was recently part of a group that met with Gov. Rick Snyder and U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta to talk about the gap between skilled workers and in-demand jobs, known as the “talent gap.” According to Snyder, 120,000 available jobs in Michigan are unfilled. Many are in the areas of manufacturing, engineering, information technology and hybrids of these fields.
“There is a need to have stackable credentials, and that need is greater than a college degree,” Smith said. “These jobs don’t go unfilled because people are unavailable; it’s because the talent isn’t aligned to get the job. We have to import workers when we really shouldn’t have to.”
Some companies have long vacancy lists of jobs, he added: “It’s almost impossible to fathom that we have that many jobs open and we can’t connect the unemployed to those jobs.”
With careers rapidly changing and college costs skyrocketing, it’s time for students to become exposed to the fact that there are post-secondary education and training options besides a four-year degree, he said.
Still, about 70 percent of all jobs require some kind of post-secondary education: technical certification, an apprenticeship, an associate or four-year degree.
“Kids have to be graduating from high school and they have to be going on to get some kind of post-secondary training, but it’s a wide range,” said Kevin Stotts, president of Talent 2025. Representing 115 area CEOs in manufacturing, healthcare, information technology, construction, engineering and business services, Talent 2025 works to align talent with workplace needs.
But ingraining that message into K-12 schools requires a shift, Stotts said.
Byron Center students watch a robot at work
“There was such an emphasis on ‘go to college.’ That was your ticket. (But) that could mean getting a degree in a field where there was no demand for that education and training.”
The “college” message was very strong during the economic downturn a few years ago and, though job losses occurred across many industries, manufacturing got a really bad rap, he said. Young people stopped considering it as an option, but the industry has since rebounded and revolutionized.
“We have more than recovered the jobs lost in the manufacturing industry since the Great Recession,” Stotts said. “The jobs that are back are better paying, require technical knowledge and skill, they are utilizing technology and they are in cleaner environments.”
Shrinking the Gap
With the gap becoming more evident, schools and businesses are working together to prepare students for the future West Michigan workforce.
Sixty Byron Center High School students recently toured four area manufacturers to get an up-close, hands-on look at operations that put them in touch with employers in the region’s biggest industry.
Junior Harrison Kosak said he wants to work in engineering or robotics, and that it helps to see what’s out there while still in high school.
“It helps me get more in-depth with what I want to do,” Harrison said as he toured AutoCam. “I can look at these different occupations and see what I might be interested in.”
Byron Center High School teacher Lary Shoemaker, who teaches drafting, CAM/CNC classes and pre-engineering, has 10 students taking his classes — more than 10 percent of the high school’s enrollment — proving that gearing up students for high-demand jobs is possible.
“In West Michigan, the school districts recognize that 25 percent of our jobs are in the manufacturing sector,” Shoemaker said. “We have companies right in Byron Center that are direct placement for students that enter this career path. We have great companies in Grand Rapids that support a manufacturing environment at the high school level.”
AutoCam is one example. Steve Heethuis, training director for the Kentwood firm, talked to the visiting students about career-pathway opportunities right at the company: apprenticeships and the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, which gives employees the opportunity to receive an associate degree for free. Many go on to get engineering degrees. AutoCam also offers internships, scholarships and is a partner in the Launch U Program.
“We are interested in them getting curious about manufacturing,” Heethuis said. “If they have an opportunity to come work for us or any other manufacturer, we feel like it’s a success because we recognize that manufacturing is absolutely vital to our long-term economic regional success. We feel like it’s our leadership position to introduce students to manufacturing.”
Two years ago, Byron Center hosted a college and career day, which included several area manufacturers who presented educational opportunities and apprentice programs.
“Anytime you can have students really talk directly to the people that are potential employers, it’s good real world experience,” Shoemaker said. “It’s almost like a pre-interview.”
Shoemaker, who worked 22 years in manufacturing before starting his teaching career, said schools need to play a role in shifting the paradigm when it comes to how skilled-trades jobs are viewed. It’s possible to receive training and degrees, paid for by companies and allowing students to finish without debt and with direct access to jobs. He’d also like more teachers to come from manufacturing backgrounds.
A Tight Market, Rising Wages
With regional unemployment below 4 percent, the job market is tight, Stotts said.
“That’s a marked change from seven years ago,” he stressed. “The unemployment rate is significantly less than even just a year ago. Employers are trying to find any available talent, so the scarcity of talent to fill open jobs is being seen across every industry and at every occupation level. … It’s tight across the board, across all industries.”
As a result, wages are projected to rise by more than 20 percent in several industries over the next 10 years.
Employers are coming together with education and workforce partners to consider education and training requirements, and how they line up with talent-development programs, Stotts said.
Working together, businesses and schools can begin exposing students to careers as early as middle school.
“The more we can expose students to the variety of industries and jobs and career pathways,” Stotts said, “the more informed those kids and their families will be about what it’s like to work in a field like manufacturing, and where they can go to get education and training.”
As he toured the manufacturing area of AutoCam Precision Components, Byron Center High School junior Devin Merchant said he’s glad to have the opportunity to get out in the field.
“I’m interested in computer hardware engineering,” Devin said. “I think exposing myself to as many opportunities as possible will be beneficial to me in the future.
“There are so many opportunities out there that I didn’t even realize there were.”
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Teresa Dood, Parkview Elementary’s Kent School Services Network coordinator, brings an awareness that is deep and real to her job linking families with resources.
For her, navigating complicated systems and overcoming seemingly impossible barriers is personal.
From her school office, Dood explains how heartbreaking experiences can, with time, become life lessons that allow her to relate to other families and empathize with what they face. Consider her current battle: Dood is the single mother of three adopted children, one of whom has Duchenne muscular dystrophy and needs a potentially life-prolonging medication that insurance keeps denying.
A year and a half ago, Dood was fostering her son, now 4, and preparing to adopt him when he was diagnosed with Duchenne, a rare genetic disorder that overwhelmingly affects boys and is characterized by progressive muscle degeneration and weakness. (He and his siblings’ names are not being published due to privacy concerns.) The typical life expectancy of a person with Duchenne is the early 20s.
Teresa Dood welcomes Parkview students to school during drop-off time
“That was devastating to me: to learn that this little boy who I so deeply love would have yet another challenge outside of other early-life trauma to overcome, that will ultimately end his life,” Dood said.
But Dood’s son is among 13 percent of Duchenne patients with a genetic mutation that qualifies him for a newly approved drug called Exondys 51, a gene-skipping therapy, which was given accelerated approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Said Dood, “It has the potential to give him a typical lifespan.”
Teresa Dood checks out fourth-grader Madison Dehaan’s glittery arm
However, the drug costs a minimum $300,000 a year for weekly injections — and Dood’s son needs it for the rest of his life.
She has gone through all internal appeals within Medicaid and received repeated denials, because drug studies on Exondys 51 were not expansive enough. Her claim will next go to an external appeal through the State of Michigan. Other families are facing similar battles to get the drug covered.
“My son won’t get back the skills he has already lost, but it will help maintain his skill levels,” Dood said.
She’s hoping if the external appeal is denied, the drug manufacturer, Sarepta Therapeutics, will cover the cost of the drug because her son can provide valuable data for further study of the medication.
She’s That Go-to Person
At Parkview, where approximately 90 percent of families qualify for free or reduced lunch, Dood works with students and families to eliminate barriers to students’ success at school and establish community partnerships to meet larger schoolwide needs.
A Wyoming native, she has formed partnerships with churches, and received grant funding for a monthly visit from a Feeding America Food Truck. She is starting a program called Good Guys to bring in fathers and other male role models to volunteer.
Parkview teacher Lori Schimmelmann said Dood is the go-to person for many needs at Parkview.
“Teresa gives of herself 110 percent for our Parkview kids,” Schimmelmann said. “When we have a student with a need, Teresa is the first person we call. If she can’t help us, she finds us someone that can. She does everything in her power to make sure that our Parkview kids have what they need to be successful.”
Dood has a bachelor’s degree in secondary education from Calvin College. She taught for a brief time before switching to children’s and youth ministry positions at local churches for 10 years. After that, she became a site coordinator for TEAM 21, the after-school program serving Wyoming Public Schools, for several years before beginning as the KSSN coordinator five years ago.
“I am passionate about impacting kids and families in our community, and I’m passionate about education,” Dood said. “I also see how sometimes people’s life challenges get in the way of kids being successful.
“I get excited when I see families come full circle from sometimes needing a lot of supports or resources, to becoming empowered and equipping their family to then being able to share that with others.”
It’s Dood’s everyday interactions with students and families that stands out most, said Principal Katie Jobson.
“Teresa does a great job building relationship with families,” Jobson said. “She brings a good balance between understanding what might be a barrier to families, and seeing the education perspective of what schools are trying to accomplish. She’s really good at bridging those gaps so we are all on the same team.
“Her own unique set of personal experience help her understand where families are coming from in a way that other people may not be able to understand,” she added. “That’s always a comfort to families to understand that somebody gets it.”
Learning the System
Those personal experiences include fostering 20 children over the years and raising her adopted children from infancy. Explained Dood, “I describe foster care as having some of the greatest highs and the greatest lows. There’s amazing joy … yet there’s been some really hard stuff too.”
There’s also been a lot of navigating red tape.
Teresa Dood brings her experiences of fostering and adopting as a single mother to her job connecting families with resources
“I have experiences of going through the IEP (Individualized Education Program for special education students) and having a child with significant behavioral challenges, and I know how it is to work the public mental health system in Kent County,” she said.
She also knows about judgment quickly cast on parents of children with mental health challenges. She wants to lift up families and break down stereotypes and stigmas: “I’ve walked the mental health world with my kids and seen how taxing that is with the other kids in the family and the parents.”
So now she walks beside parents, building relationships and being supportive. To them she can say, “‘You know, I get how hard it is. … I get that it’s hard and I get that it’s a sacrifice, but your kid needs you to be part of the solution.'”
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Five young apple trees grow outside West Elementary School. They are the beginnings of the Beverly Bryan Community Orchard, which could someday flourish with pear, plum and chestnut trees, blueberry and raspberry bushes, and feature benches and mulch for beautification.
The eventual goal is to feed hungry students and offer fresh produce to neighbors. It also provides the opportunity to teach agriculture to students, who will tend, water and harvest the orchard, said Kent School Services Network coordinator Erika VanDyke, who works to connect West students and families with local resources.
The orchard is being developed through a partnership with the Wyoming Tree Commission, called The Tree Amigos. It is named after the late wife of Tree Commissioner Greg Bryan, who donated $5,000 to the project.
Students recently watered the dwarf heirloom trees, checking out the little apples hanging from the branches. “I find it exciting that we are going to have fresh apples,” said third-grader Lyric McPhee.
Habitat for Humanity donated the trees from a downtown lot it is developing. A crew of volunteers recently planted them at West.
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
From left, Oriole Park Elementary School social worker Heidi Workman, left, and Principal Jennifer Slanger talk about parenting strategies during Superhero Literacy Night
Plenty of books in the house. Nightly story time. Exposure to words, words and more words.
Those are three components that help a child develop reading skills from birth on, and the more a child reads the better in correlates with achievement. Research shows the more a child reads and is read to at home the better they do in school. A student who reads 20 minutes each day clocks in 3,600 minutes per school year and reads 1.8 million words per year.
So if you’re worried about your child passing third grade beginning in 2019-2020, you can help him or her acquire the required reading skills.
“I think parents feel a little bit like they are left out of this particular equation,” said Lowell Area Schools Superintendent Greg Pratt of the third-grade reading legislation. “The reality is just the opposite. Parents can impact this age group’s reading progress probably more than any other age group. Reading to your child every day can be done very early and can be put in place every day.”
Pratt said the district has and will continue to support parents in helping their children to become better readers. He noted Lowell’s decade-old summer Arrow Readers on the Move program, and that the district sent books home this summer with students who have been needing help with reading.
“We’re surprised how many students don’t have a collection of books to access,” he added. “All those things make a big impact.”
Parents listen to tops during Literacy Night
Parents Offer Insight
Parents attending Superhero Reading Night recently at Oriole Park Elementary School, in Wyoming Public Schools, learned at-home reading strategies and were connected with resources available at Kent District Library.
Mom Dawn Parm said she makes it a priority to support her children’s learning.
“It’s important to support learning, reading and education in general for the kids,” Parm said. “And it’s important for parents to be involved with the kids, so they see their parents are interested in what they are learning.”
Dad Jim Bos said he’s already seen at-home reading pay off with his second-grader, sixth-grader and seventh-grader, who are all reading well above grade level.
“It’s important to be consistent about it,” Bos said. “When my kids were younger, we were always reading one to two books a night with them. Have them try. Not always read to them; give them a shot. Have a variety of books so things stay fresh for them.
He said reading well has helped his children overall.
“When you have good readers, that gives them an advancement terms of all the other academic stuff too,” he said. “Don’t just send them to bed, take a seat with them. Read with them.”
Editor’s Note:Student Leaders is a series dedicated to students that go above and beyond to serve their school, peers and community
Playing piano moves Becca Hanson’s soul. That’s why she makes it about something bigger than herself. She likes to share that feeling – indulgent, she calls it – with others.
She’s that kind of leader: a poised, soft-spoken doer who realizes the impact that masterpieces by classical composers like Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt can have on people.
“It’s a way to make the audience feel alive with me,” said the Wyoming High School junior. “A lot of times we are so busy that we forget we are alive.”
So after her school and volunteer work is done, she turns to the instrument she’s been playing since age 9 and gets lost in the blissfulness of her craft.
“It’s a way to be a little bit selfish and indulge in how the music feels to play, but it also allows other people to indulge in something that brings up memories for them and happy moments,” she said.
Selfish may be the last adjective one would use to describe Becca, who recently helped better the lives of others in another way. She hosted “Awakened,” a benefit concert to collect food for Feeding America West Michigan food bank at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Rapids. With admission set at one non-perishable food item, she gathered three 27-gallon containers full of food to donate.
“I decided to have the recital for a less selfish cause,” Becca said. “I didn’t feel it was right to go up there and be celebrated myself. There are a lot of things that helped me get to that point. Part of that is seeing how important it is to help the community through my church.”
Becca, the daughter of Teresa and Jeffery Hanson, said she visited Iquitos, Peru, where her mother comes from, at age 9, and that’s when she became interested in helping eliminate hunger.
“Iquitos is a particularly impoverished part of the country,” she said. “I realized food is really hard to come by. I grew up always being aware that some people just can’t eat and I realized I’ve been taking that for granted.
“I wanted to make a difference because do I even deserve to live if I have the advantage of having so much wealth and extra to give to other people? Do I even deserve to live if I don’t give?”
One of the Best
Teachers said Becca’s leadership stands out in many areas. At Wyoming, she serves as vice president of Key Club and is in National Honor Society. She played the oboe last year in the St. Cecilia Philharmonic Orchestra, is in choir and Science Olympiad and plans to join the debate team.
“Becca looks for opportunities to use her strengths to make those around her better,” said math teacher Eric Retan. “Through years of hard work and an incredible ability, she is one of the best piano players I’ve ever witnessed … Becca consistently demonstrates kindness, compassion and generosity in my class. She shows genuine concern for others in class. She also has a very strong work ethic.”
“She regularly puts hours of work into her piano playing, and she approaches other areas of school and her life with that same fervor,” added English teacher Dan Lorenz.
Becca plans to host more concerts for Feeding America. She continues to study piano under the tutelage of Hope College Music Professor Andrew Le and is considering plans for college, flirting with the idea of Ivy League schools. But she isn’t sure she wants to major in music. “I’d really like to major in aerospace engineering,” she said.
That might not be a big surprise to science teacher Stephanie Rathsack.
“I have found her to be very creative not just in music, but in science,” Rathsack said. “In Honors Chemistry she was always willing to work hard to make a new lab idea come to completion. She is an excellent classmate and student.”
Still, however Becca spends her days, one can bet she will continue to find her place at the piano, filling the room with music and helping change the world, one masterpiece and one can of food at a time.
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
The skills for success in both areas are largely the same. And, for the most part, we’re not teaching them.
Why? Because they’re not easy to measure. The objective measure of a student’s response on a multiple choice test will always be easier to measure than the “subjective” assessment of employability skills, soft skills, or whatever they are.
My friend Lou Glazer, head of the Michigan Future think tank, writes in a recent Dome Magazine column the skills for success are embedded in a liberal arts degree that promotes critical thinking, creativity and the confidence to recreate oneself when one door closes and another opens.
Glazer argues many, if not most, of the jobs that made Michigan great have gone away or will go away in the near future and it’s a fool’s errand to prepare students for jobs that will not exist 20 years from now.
He’s absolutely right. So, too, are our employers who say our K-12 schools are not turning out enough students interested in the jobs available in today’s marketplace.
Many K-12 graduates go to college but only half achieve a degree within six years. They leave angry, confused and burdened with a mountain of debt and no clear career path.
Many others do not go to college, do not enter the military and do not enter the jobs employers say are readily available.
Why? Because we’ve measured their success — and ours, as educators — on their response to a multiple choice standardized test for which they were taught, tutored, wheedled and cajoled to the exclusion of far more meaningful and enriching educational and academic pursuits. We did this because we were forced to do so. Businesses, legislators, congressmen, presidents and education secretaries looked at the $1 billion or more we spend each day on education in this country and demanded more accountability. The only thing that could be easily constructed and measured in a timely fashion were multiple choice assessments of core content knowledge.
We’ve learned the hard way these standardized assessments are not a reliable measure of success in college, in careers, or in life. We’ve also set aside other opportunities for students to gain confidence through life experiences — primarily work, at an early age — in exchange for any activity that prepares them for college or helps to build an attractive college application.
Attributes of Success
The attributes that are reliable measures of success are those cited by Glazer in the book “Becoming Brilliant” by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff. They are:
Communication
Critical thinking
Creativity
Confidence
Mastery of Content
The ability to work in Collaboration with others
Godfrey-Lee Public Schools are adopting the “6Cs” in the new board-approved Learner Profiles and teachers are designing new projects around them.
Restoring an appreciation for these character attributes is embedded in the employability skills framework being implemented this fall at Northview Public Schools. They are communication and critical thinking, effort and productivity, relationships and citizenship, time management and social wellness.
Many of these things were learned in previous generations through hard work at home and in part-time jobs in high school and college. All are the keys to success in school, in college, in careers and, arguably, are more important than your answer to question 42 on page 8 of a four-hour multiple choice test. (These employability skills, by the way, can and will be measured through an assessment created by the Education Testing Service.)
But what about the idea of preparing students for careers that don’t require a four-year degree? Doesn’t that conflict with preparing students for college?
Bill Gates famously said the new Three R’s in education are Rigor, Relevance and Relationships. Policy experts pounced on increased rigor as essential to success, ignoring students’ need to understand the relevance of their learning.
The Michigan Merit Curriculum eliminated many options for students to pursue their own passions in the K-12 environment through the preponderance of required credits for graduation. Like the state assessments on which we’re judged, the lion’s share of their curriculum is mandated. If queried, as we’ve done in the past, the majority of students will say they’ve no idea how they will use this mandated content in the real world.
Relevance, Engagement, Success
Instructional models like the project-based learning used at Kent Innovation High and the renowned High Tech High School in San Diego build real-world problems into the educational process. This type of instruction, modeled in other schools too, like Forest Hills Public Schools’ “Gone Boarding” program, create relevance and the thirst for learning.
Connecting students to the world of work, helping them understand the jobs available in their region, and the knowledge, skills and abilities required to be successful in the world of work is a step toward greater relevance. When the content is relevant, students are engaged. When they’re engaged, they’re more likely to tackle, and be successful, in more rigorous content.
If they’re more engaged, they’re far more likely to achieve the content mastery, creativity and confidence envisioned in “Becoming Brilliant.” The connections to business, to employability, the understanding of how math is useful in the real world, will inspire far more students to succeed, to attain a post-secondary credential, a two-year or a four-year degree.
Through greater exposure to the world of work, some students may choose to pursue a postsecondary credential that prepares them for immediate employment. The majority will continue to pursue a college degree, as they do today.
All should recognize college is not an end. College is a means to an end. Students should see a college degree as a credential required to achieve a career goal. Those who do are far more likely to succeed in college than those with no clear career goals.
College going, employability and filling the talent gap are compatible concepts. They’re all related, and they all demand that we stop teaching to the test and begin anew the challenge laid before educators by Nobel Prize Winner William Butler Yeats: “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
GRPS Superintendent Teresa Weatherall Neal, at podium, spoke at a press conference Tuesday following President Trump’s decision to end the DACA program (photo courtesy Grand Rapids Public Schools)
As a mother and grandmother, Teresa Weatherall Neal knows well the value of family. And as superintendent of nearly 17,000 Grand Rapids Public Schools students, she thinks about the families they all come from.
So Neal’s reaction to President Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was a strong and swift call to protect students and their families from deportation.
“I’m going to fight for them,” Neal said in her office, the day after Trump announced a phase-out of DACA . “I stand with them. I will fight till the bitter end to keep these children in the school system, with their families.”
Her remarks followed a GRPS Board of Education resolution denouncing the decision, and calling on Congress to pass legislation enabling undocumented young people to gain permanent residency. Other area superintendents also expressed support of their immigrant students, in light of the decision that removes protection from deportation for children raised in the U.S. by undocumented parents.
Kevin Polston
In a prepared statement, Godfrey-Lee Public Schools Superintendent Kevin Polston said the district “reaffirms our commitment to providing safe and supportive learning environments for each student.”
“(B)ecause each child’s unique path is an integral chapter in our district’s story, this action by the executive branch will impact our whole community,” said Polston, whose district’s students are 75 percent Latino. “Our diversity is our strength, and our doors are open for all families that hope for a brighter future for their children. We are forever friend and partner on this journey.”
Tom Reeder
Supporting Diversity in Districts
In Wyoming Public Schools, where 38 percent of students are Latino, Supertintendent Tom Reeder did not specifically address DACA but alluded to government decisions that “have caused significant stress to our families, particularly our children.”
“The last nine months have brought great stress upon members of our community – more than I can remember in the past – and greatly impacts our local families,” Reeder said in a statement to School News Network. “Wyoming Public Schools will continue to support all our students and families in the best way possible to ensure safety and the best environment for learning success.”
He urged parents to reach out to the district to reduce any barrier to their children’s learning, adding, “In the meantime, we hope that adults will seek solutions in the near future that will always ensure everyone is valued, our most vulnerable are protected, and our core fundamental beliefs revisited.”
Kentwood Public Schools is home to a great many immigrant and refugee families, a fact Superintendent Michael Zoerhoff emphasized.
Mike Zoerhoff
“The strength of our Kentwood community is our diversity and the tapestry of cultures that make up our school district,†Zoerhoff told SNN. “We will continue with our mission to provide an education of excellence and equity to all the children who come through our doors. Kentwood Public Schools is a family and we will continue to support our family members in any way possible.”
The Trump administration’s decision, announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, would end the DACA program enacted by President Obama in 2012. It allows young people brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents, to receive temporary permission to work, study and get driver’s licenses, renewable every two years. To qualify, applicants must have clean criminal records, be enrolled in school or serve in the military. About 800,000 are current recipients.
This week’s decision officially ends the program in March and halts new applications now, but those whose permits expire before March 5 can apply for a two-year renewal. Trump called on Congress to pass immigration legislation to replace it,and tweeted that he will “revisit this issue” if Congress does not act.
‘It’s About Humanity’
In Grand Rapids Public Schools, which enrolls about 4,000 Latino students, the program’s cancellation may affect between 500 and 1,000 students, said spokesman John Helmholdt. Although most are Latino, some come from other countries, he said, adding the district has “a moral obligation” to support their families and “get Congress to take action to do what’s right by kids.”
“This has a negative impact on social/emotional learning,” Helmholdt said. “Now students and their families are not focused on the children’s education and getting homework done. They’re having fear for what does this executive order mean, and what do they have to do to make any kinds of preparation in the event Congress doesn’t take swift action.
“This is the insanity of this new administration,” he added. “It’s evoking this fear, anxiety and us vs. them mentality that has no place in public education.”
The GRPS school board statement said members were “deeply disappointed” by Trump’s decision, and urged Congress to pass the Development, Relief and Education for Minors (DREAM) Act, introduced in 2001 but never approved. The board called DACA “crucially important to public education,” noting teachers working under the program help fill a need for teaching English-language learners.
“We believe students brought to the United States as children must be able to pursue an education without the threat of deportation, and have a pathway to fully participate in the American society as citizens,” the board said. Board President Wendy Falb and Superintendent Neal spoke out at a press conference on the day of Trump’s decision, along with a DACA recipient with children in GRPS and Roberto Torres, executive director of the Hispanic Center of Western Michigan. Neal later called the decision unjust and “unconscionable,” causing trauma to families, students and staff.
“To disrupt the lives of kids is so wrong,” Neal said. “We should be focusing in on educating these kids. I shouldn’t worry about whether my kids are going to show up because they’re afraid to come out of the shadows.”She urged superintendents, city officials and companies across the area to find out how many families are affected, then work to craft a legislative solution.
“I don’t think it’s a Republican or Dem thing,” she added. “It’s about humanity.”
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Other positions you have held in education (title, school, district, state):
Sixth-and-seventh-grade social studies teacher at Jackson Park Junior High School
9th and 10th-grade social studies teacher at Wyoming Park and Rogers High schools
Assistant principal at Wyoming Junior High
Assistant principal at Wyoming High School
Head varsity football coach at Wyoming Park High School
How about jobs outside education? My dad owned a roofing and siding business and I was the “cutter boy.” I would cut the siding and he would hang it. I also cut grass for my brother’s landscape company, worked part-time for a plumber, delivered products for Kent Rubber Supply, loaded trucks for East Jordan Iron Works, maintained grounds for South Kent Recreation Association and worked in a plastic molding factory.
Spouse/children: I married my high-school sweetheart, Melissa DeJarnatt. We went to West Elementary School together but we didn’t know each other then because she was two grades ahead of me. We have a daughter, Madisyn, 11; and a son, Kolten, 8.
West Elementary Principal Josh Baumbach was once a student there
Hobbies/Interests/Little-known talent: I love to hunt deer, rabbit and raccoon with my dad and brothers. I’ve coached football for the past 14 years. I enjoy reading books. My twin brother and I participate in Spartan Races. I can wiggle both ears or just one, and I can do a poor impersonation of Donald Duck.
What kind of kid were you at the age of students at this new school?
I was an active kid. I played outside all the time with my siblings (five brothers and a sister). We would catch salamanders, hunt for frogs and turtles in Buck Creek, build tree forts behind our house, ride snowmobiles, swim and play sports. We spent a lot of time at Buck Creek, and every time we left the house our parents would say, “Don’t come back wet!” Without fail, one of us would fall in the creek and we’d wait for hours before coming home so our clothes would dry.
The biggest lesson you have learned from students is… to forgive and forget and to laugh every day.
Finish this sentence: If I could go back to school I would go to grade… fifth grade, as a student in Ms. Donovan’s class. She challenged me to be a better student and person each and every day.
If you walked into your new school building to theme music every day, what would the song be?
“Happy,” by Pharrell Williams
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Wyoming’s Parkview Elementary School teachers demonstrated their love for new school supplies at the Teacher Resource Store, where they left with cartloads of notebooks, pencils, folders, paper and the promise to “pay it forward.”
“Oh my gosh! Look at how cute these Post-it notes are!” one teacher squealed, delighted to receive a full bag of whimsically decorated sticky notes for her classroom.
As teachers prepared their classrooms this summer, they took advantage of a new resource aimed to alleviate the cost burden of school supplies in low-income schools.
The Storehouse of Community Resources, located in a portion of Frontline Community Church, 4411 Plainfield Ave. NE, includes the Teacher Resource Store. There, teachers from schools with at least 70 percent of students qualifying for free and reduced-lunch rates can shop together as a staff twice a year for just $50 per school. Recently it was Parkview teachers’ turn to stock up.
World Vision donates supplies
“There are so many things I buy at Meijer all summer long,” said Parkview teacher Angela Clum, whose cart was filled with necessities. “It is tremendous that we can have this as a resource.”
Former teacher Jessica Johns started the volunteer-run Storehouse last October with supplies from World Vision, a global humanitarian organization. It also includes the Essentials store, where low-income families can shop monthly for toiletries, household goods and hygiene items.
Johns, a former teacher at inner-city schools in Indiana, said Teacher Resource Store helps fill a need tied to social justice. A Frontline Church member, Johns served on the missions and outreach team and worked to start a community center. That idea evolved into the Storehouse.
Parkview teachers Angela Clum, left, and Holly Moog shop for supplies
Relieving Cost to Teachers
Teachers, especially in low-income schools, spend hundreds of dollars annually to stock their classrooms, and many students rely completely on schools for supplies, said store coordinator Michaela Krull, a Grand Rapids Public Schools elementary school teacher.
“We really want to help the teachers that don’t have really strong parent ability to offer financial help,” Krull said. “Those teachers are buying everything – 100 percent of their school supplies.
“I’ve been a recipient of these supplies, and I know how burdensome it can be financially to buy all those things yourself.”
When Krull first utilized the store as a shopper in April, she realized what a gift to the community it was. Items coveted by many a teacher — Expo markers, ASTROBRIGHTS paper and pre-sharpened Ticonderoga pencils — were available for the taking. “We posed for pictures with the supplies and everything, we were so excited.”
Parkview teacher Elissa Lauer prepares to stock her kindergarten class
So far, Wyoming, Godwin Heights, Godfrey-Lee, Grand Rapids, Kentwood, Wyoming and Northview public schools teachers have shopped, and more schools are on a wait-list. Johns hopes to serve more schools in the near future.
Besides the $50 per school fee, the only other requirement is that teachers “pay it forward” in some way that involves their students and community.
Parkview Principal Katie Jobson said about 90 percent of her students are economically disadvantaged.
“This frees up teachers to use resources in other ways,” Jobson said. “It’s fantastic and what a neat message to pay it forward.”
While Michigan Teacher of the Year Luke Wilcox has already delved into his statewide responsibilities, he isn’t forgetting the new crop of teachers at East Kentwood High School. In fact, he plans to use his experience with them to impact other Michigan schools.
Wilcox recently welcomed 11 new high school teachers, several fresh out of college, to boot camp for Rising Teacher Leaders, a group he started with English teacher Mike Traywick. They gathered inside the AP statistics classroom he has to leave for the year to fulfill his Teacher of the Year roles.
“One of my goals is to figure out how to best support new teachers, not just in Kentwood but across the state,” said Wilcox, who received the honor in May and is credited for helping create a culture of success at East Kentwood. “I’m now thinking of what we are doing here in Kentwood as an experimental lab, where we are trying ideas and refining ideas with the goal that we replicating some of the things we are doing here.
“As Michigan Teacher of the Year I have that platform where I could expand the programs into other schools,” he said.
New East Kentwood teachers take in some tips from Luke Wilcox
Tapping into Kentwood Talent
With its third cohort beginning this fall, Rising Teacher Leaders serves as a schoolwide teacher support system with 32 teachers now involved. Each year a new cohort begins, receiving mentorship from the previous ones. The goal is for the majority of teachers in the school to eventually be Rising Teacher Leaders.
Wilcox greeted teachers before leading them on a tour of the school. In classrooms, teachers in the first two cohorts presented on topics they find of value for new Kentwood teachers.
“It’s super exciting,” said math teacher Sarah Stecker, who is beginning her first year at East Kentwood. “I met Luke awhile ago and I was really inspired by his teaching style and I am excited to get to work with him.”
“I feel like it’s really comforting just to know you have a group to lean on and go to with questions,” said Katie Roth, a health and biology teacher starting her first year after graduating from Central Michigan University. “They are having the same struggles. You feel less alone. I think it’s cool that (Wilcox) wants to give back to teachers.”
Rising Teacher Leaders meets weekly for professional development focused on helping teachers in their first few years. Topics are anything teachers want to discuss, questions they have, or things they want to brainstorm. Wilcox sees it as a way for teachers to grow in the profession surrounded by colleagues they know, trust and can learn from.
Traywick said Wilcox’s work as Teacher of the Year means more opportunities and value for the group.
“I’m hoping it brings us more ideas. It should amplify what we are trying to do here tenfold,” he said. “Wilcox is one of the best in the nation. To be able to tap that knowledge will be a big deal.”
Wilcox wants to help keep momentum going at East Kentwood, which climbed from the 4th percentile (meaning 19 out of 20 schools in Michigan were deemed better) to the 49th percentile rank statewide since 2012, after receiving Priority School status based on standardized test scores, graduation rates and achievement gaps.
“I still want to have impact, and I want East Kentwood High School to be great. I feel like this is a way I can maintain some influence on the positive direction we’ve had in the past few years.”
Wilcox’s work to support teachers is already expanding further than East Kentwood. He is developing a teacher leadership academy at Van Andel Education Institute for teachers to support each other, develop skills and learn new strategies.
Michigan Teacher of the Year Luke Wilcox, at right, chats with new East Kentwood teachers
Godfrey-ee Superintendent Kevin Polston chats with ninth-grader Jose De La O, at right and his sister, Alejandra De La O, a 2011 Lee High graduate (School News Network)
Superintendent Kevin Polston is greeting people in the neighborhoods, school and local businesses. He’s talking to students, letting them see he wants to know each of them, what they like to do, what grade they are in.
Reaching out is key, he said, in keeping momentum going forward in the district, which has experienced successes and growth in recent years.
“I want people to get to know me and build trust and relationships,” said Polston, who started as superintendent July 1. “I don’t take the responsibility lightly of parents trusting us with their children for the better part of their day. That’s an honor and responsibility that I take seriously: to be good stewards of that time, resource and trust that parents give us.”
Polston, 39, the youngest superintendent in Kent County’s 20 traditional districts, takes the reins fromDavid Britten who retired from the post after nine years.
Staff members said they look forward to the vigor and fresh insight Polston can bring to the job. His purpose as an educator complements doing just that.
Polston meets with students at Lee Middle-High School
“My mission in education was to change the world,” Polston said. “The people that came before me made great sacrifices so I can have opportunity. I take that responsibility as, ‘How can I provide those opportunities as a school leader for our students, here?’
“One of our responsibilities is to provide a better future for our youth, and there’s no better vehicle to deliver that than through education.”
Identifying with Newcomer Experience
Polston shares with many Godfrey-Lee students the experience of being raised in an immigrant family. Polston’s mother, Elizabeth Polston, immigrated from Palestine as a child. The family was proud of their culture, which was ingrained in his upbringing.
“Arab Americans are very familial. It’s a very close-knit community,” he said, relating it to the largely Hispanic Godfrey-Lee community. “There’s a lot of parallels with the Latino and Hispanic community and the community I grew up in.”
He remembers realizing as a ninth-grader, while attending a primarily Caucasian school near Lansing, that people wondered about his background. Friends would ask, “What are you?” when inquiring about his ethnicity. “It was really people trying to get to know me but they didn’t have the words to ask.”
Still, over time, he became aware of perceptions and double standards when it comes to different ethnic groups. “You soak up all those things. They are either implied or explicit; regardless, they have an impact on you.
“The brain has this desire to categorize and compartmentalize information and we have to actively work to disrupt our natural reaction to things. That’s where education comes in. That’s where relationships come in.”
Superintendent Kevin Polston takes a look at senior Adriana Sanchez’s schedule
Seeking ‘Something More’
Polston said he was very happy as a middle school principal in Grand Haven, but always sought “something more.” He was executive director of an after-school program that served low-income students. He also chaired a committee focused on diversity. “When you look at the places where I had a choice to spend my time, it was with populations that are similar to the populations here,” he noted.
He’s already caught on to the family atmosphere in Godfrey-Lee.
“The school staff is so committed here. They care deeply about their students, and they work tirelessly to deliver the best instruction possible. It’s more than instruction, it’s the best possible education.”
Staff members said they are embracing possibilities.
“We are excited to see a new face in that position, though we’ll miss (Britten),” said Tom DeGennaro, a high school social studies teacher. “We look forward to new ideas and a different energy level. Change can be exciting.”
Said Brett Lambert, Lee High-Middle dean of students, “The room is full of positive energy and we’re ready to roll.”
School: Meadowlawn Elementary, Kentwood Public Schools
Other positions you have held in education: I was academic support coach for all elementary buildings in Kentwood Public Schools. I’ve also been an independent literacy consultant leading professional development with schools across Michigan. I also was a third-grade teacher at Buchanan Elementary in Grand Rapids Public Schools.
How about jobs outside education? Prior to working in education, I was a television news producer at WLWT-TV, the NBC station in Cincinnati, Ohio (my hometown).
Spouse/children: My wife’s name is Keyla. We have two daughters: Sofia, 11, and Carolina, 6.
Hobbies/interests/little-known talent: I love to write, play tennis and golf, and am also a big sports fan.
What kind of kid were you at the age of students at this new school? I was a nice kid with a big sense of humor. I loved school and have a lot of great memories of my time there.
The biggest lesson you have learned from students is … Never underestimate students. They will rise to the occasion time and time and time again. If you set the bar high with your expectations, they’ll do their best to meet them.
Finish this sentence: If I could go back to school I would go to __ grade because… third grade, because I remember it being one of my all-time favorite years, with a strong group of friends and a first-year teacher who was inspiring to all of us.
Ron Caniff, superintendent of Kent ISD, says he did what 20 local superintendents asked him to do when he filed for a waiver in January with the Michigan Department of Education to start school before Labor Day. The ISD had asked for a waiver last year too, but withdrew it after discussions with the state dragged on.
But this go-round, when the authorization came through, superintendents didn’t quite expect it so fast. They went back to their communities to take their pulse. The result: 15 of 20 districts opted for the early start, while the remaining five stuck with the Tuesday after Labor Day, bound by multi-year collective bargaining agreements or summer construction projects.
While this year’s start dates are scattered, “All superintendents certainly understand and recognize the benefits of the common calendar and start date,” Caniff said. Those able to do so will try to align their calendars next year, but there is not yet “100 percent agreement” on the best start date, he added.
The three-year waiver impacts approximately 109,000 public district and charter school students. Caniff outlined the main rationale for a pre-Labor Day start:
Align Kent ISD school calendars with districts’ partner colleges and universities for dual enrollment or early/middle college opportunities. All traditional districts have a least one student participating;
Meet the state’s 180-day, 1,098-hour of instruction mandate, plus provide increased learning time for those taking state assessments, national exams like SAT and Advanced Placement tests in the spring.
Coincide semester’s end with the holiday break in December rather than administering final exams in late January;
Coordinate schedules for students enrolled in the Kent Career Tech Center and similar collaborative programs;
Summer’s over anyway for high school students in band and fall athletics who are already back and practicing.
Lastly, in a nod to tourism, districts with pre-Labor Day starts are taking Fridays off in August, giving parents the opportunity for long weekends.
Tech Center Up and Running
Despite districts’ varying opening days, classes began Monday for some 3,000 students in four Kent ISD campus programs: Kent Career Tech Center, Kent Innovation High, Kent Transition Center and MySchool@Kent.
“We’ve communicated that school starts Aug. 21 in every way possible, except carrier pigeon,” Tech Center Principal John Kraus said. “We are doing relevant instruction the first two weeks of school.”
For the students who don’t drive themselves to campus, district high schools will operate a shuttle bus to and from the ISD campus. If some students simply can’t start until their local districts began Sept. 5, the ISD will work with students one-on-one to remediate or to provide safety instructions that they missed, Kraus said.
“Nobody is going to put a student in a situation where they have not completed required safety training,” Kraus said. “Whether it is knife skills in culinary or ladder safety in construction, we’re committed to teaching our curriculum and won’t compromise on safety.”
When Carol Paine-McGovern sees child poverty continuing to rise in Kent County, she takes some comfort in the work local schools and their communities are doing to relieve its burden on students. She’s intimately involved in that work as executive director of the Kent School Services Network, a social-services support system serving 39 schools in eight school districts.
Yet when she saw the latest local and statewide numbers on poverty and child well-being released today, Paine-McGovern again was reminded how very far we still have to go.
“It tells a profound story of a shift that has happened,” Paine-McGovern said of 2017 Kids Count in Michigan, an annual report on child and family health, education and economic security. “When you observe it in your own community, it really hits hard.”
She spoke of the continuing rise of children ages 0-17 living in poverty and its attendant challenges. The grim trends were to be discussed this morning in a press conference in Grand Rapids.
More than one in five Michigan children, just over 22 percent, lived in poverty in 2015 — a 15 percent rate increase since 2008, according to the report by the Michigan League for Public Policy. The rates were substantially worse for African-American children (47 percent) and Latinos (30 percent) than for whites (15 percent).
Although Kent County was slightly below the statewide figures, its 19.1 percent child poverty rate was up by nearly 5 percent from 2008, when the rate was 18.2 percent. Further, the 47 percent of Kent students receiving free or reduced lunches was a 21 percent rate jump since 2008, and exceeded the statewide rate of 46 percent.
Such sobering statistics represent nearly 30,000 students walking into Kent County classrooms, trying to learn the things that could help lift them out of poverty.
“When you go in schools and see the bright shiny faces and realize everything else that is going on in their lives, we have to figure out how to make things better for a large number of children,” Paine-McGovern said.
Mirroring Statewide Trends
The magnitude of the challenges is heightened by disparity. In an overall ranking of child well-being in 82 of Michigan’s 83 counties, the report places Kent County 27th. Neighboring Ottawa County is first, with 9 percent of its children living in poverty — less than half Kent’s rate.
Yet the report also shows Kent County’s children are far from alone in their struggles: 72 state counties saw child poverty increase, 79 an increase in free and reduced lunch, and 58 an increase in confirmed cases of child abuse and neglect. Kent saw a sharp increase in the latter, along with more low-birthweight babies and inadequate prenatal care.
Other local trends were more encouraging, including a drop in teen births and the percentage of students not graduating on time.
But poverty continues to permeate thousands of children’s lives, and challenges schools’ efforts to “level the playing field” for them, Paine-McGovern said. She noted that in more than half of Kent County’s 230 school buildings, the free and reduced-lunch rate exceeds the state average.
“A lot of schools out there are trying to educate children, when poverty is a consistent theme in their lives,” she said. “How do we as a community pull together to figure out how we can help children learn and be successful and work out of poverty? On the flipside, what are we doing for those families consistently, generation after generation, living in poverty? Those are the hard questions.”
Help for Struggling Families
Kent School Services Network works to answer some of those questions, not just in the urban districts but suburban and rural communities. Here, as statewide, poverty knows no boundaries.
At Kenowa Hills’ Alpine Elementary School, set amid the rolling fruit orchards of Northwest Kent County, KSSN came on board in 2014-15. Since then students and families have gotten help with everything from food, clothing and eyeglasses to housing and state assistance programs.
A school-community coordinator, mental-health clinician and Department of Health and Human Services worker help meet the needs of Alpine’s 375 students. About 75 percent of them receive free or reduced lunch, and in the fall many Latino children come from migrant families who work in the orchards.
Principal Jason Snyder said KSSN has helped students with chronic attendance problems get to school, increased communication with parents, and made school a better experience for students from struggling families.
“That they don’t have to worry about what to eat for dinner or where to stay for the night is definitely to going to help in the classroom,” Snyder said.
From the farm fields of Kenowa, Sparta and Cedar Springs to the city streets of Grand Rapids, Kentwood and Wyoming, poverty remains a perennial challenge to schools, Paine-McGovern said.
“When Kids Count comes out every year it’s always a rude awakening — that we don’t rest, there’s more work to be done.”
Lost in the debate surrounding the repeal of the Affordable Care Act is the potentially disastrous effect dramatic reductions in Medicaid funding will have on health care for children, one of the few universally recognized success stories in health care coverage over the last 20 years.
Congress in 1997, after rejecting the universal health care reform proposed by then President Bill Clinton, coalesced behind the Children’s Health Insurance Program in agreement that early health care is critical to children’s future success. Since then, the uninsured rate among children has fallen from 14 percent to less than 4.5 percent.
Combined with increased Medicaid coverage and the extension of health care to millions of uninsured through the Affordable Care Act, the percentage of children who are uninsured has fallen dramatically. Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute reports the impact of extending insurance to parentsis so great that “a child was eight times more likely to have public insurance if their parent had public insurance, when compared to a child whose parent was uninsured.”
While the impact of poverty on educational performance remains a subject of debate, the effect of health care on student performance is not. A Seattle study conducted last year concluded “fewer than 15 percent of students with zero health risks were at academic risk, (but) more than half of students with 11 or more health risks were at risk of failing.”
The Georgetown University Health Policy Institute concludes “The most profound impact of the cuts to health coverage could be a decline in student achievement. Research shows us that students eligible for Medicaid are more likely to graduate from high school and complete college than students without access to health care.”
Children with chronic pain, dental neglect and other health concerns cannot focus on their education. In this community, philanthropic organizations led by the Grand Rapids Community Foundation more than a decade ago came together with the county, schools, health and human service agencies to create the the Kent School Services Network. KSSN provides an array of health and human services for students and their families directly in the school building, using community school coordinators to identify issues impeding student. Medicaid funds are used in these settings to provide health and human services to qualifying students.
KSSN, a model for Governor Snyder’s Pathways to Potential program, and other programs like it have been so successful that policy makers now consider these strategies as evidence-based interventions for school improvement planning and reducing achievement gaps for ethnic and economically disadvantaged student populations.
Deep cuts in Medicaid funding contemplated in the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act could result in the loss of health care for tens of thousands of children in Michigan, and it could also force legislators to scale back the Children’s Health Insurance Program, especially if funding is reduced or curtailed by Congress when the program comes up for renewal in September of this year.
Our children deserve better. Children who are in pain, without treatment, or children who suffer the strain of family members with untreated disease or illness, do not have the same opportunity to succeed as those who are free of those burdens.
Michigan’s recent ranking in the national Kids Count assessment of children’s wellbeing was 32nd among the states. Access to health care was one of the few bright spots, with a state ranking of 17th. Our educational performance was 41st.
We cannot afford to fall backward. We must improve educational performance if we are to restore any portion of Michigan’s past prominence as the engine that drove the nation’s economy. Accessible and affordable health care is essential to the success of our children, to our employers, and to our economy.
Editor’s Note: This story was first published in August 2016
Gloria Tungabose’s eyes flash as she tells of her father, killed in Burundi. Her mother’s ethnicity was Tutsi and her father’s was Hutu, and the two groups were engaged in a bloody civil war. Her mother, Butoyi, was arrested.
“My mom went to jail and was raped there and had my sister,” said the East Kentwood High School student, describing how men measured her mother’s nose to determine her ethnicity.
The family moved to Congo, where violence also raged, Gloria said. They eventually arrived at a refugee camp in Namibia, living off rations of flour, beans, oil, sugar and salt, carrying drinking water to their shelters and going to school. She was 10 years old, and would remain there for three years.
Rwandan refugee Sifa Nyamuhungu and Gloria Tungabose join each other at the lunch table
Sponsored by a local organization, Gloria moved to Michigan four years ago, to discover a place where snow falls in the winter, people ride daily in cars and buses and where she can go to school with students from many different backgrounds. Now she can graduate from high school, go to college and become a nurse.
“I feel like it’s a dream and I’m still sleeping. Am I in America, really?” she asked. “I just have to live life and accept the reality in it. Even though the past was horrible and bad, I want to make my future better and help people in the future.”
Gloria’s story is similar to many refugee students who attend East Kentwood High School. They’ve escaped war. They’ve ridden on top of trains to elude dangerous gangs. They’ve seen family members murdered. They’ve crossed oceans and lived in refugee camps. They’ve faced religious and ethic persecution unlike most Americans ever experience.
Now they are seated at their desks Monday through Friday, reading literature, learning algebra, studying U.S. history and taking Michigan Merit Curriculum tests. They dream of careers, financial security, a future without violence.
Fresenai Haileselassie, from Eritrea; Arafat Abdikarim Yassin, from Somalia; and Mohamed Hisabu, from Eritrea, are refugee students who attend East Kentwood High School.
A Mosaic of Backgrounds
School diversity is often painted with a broad brush: white, black, Hispanic and Asian. But in Kentwood Public Schools, where students there come from 89 different countries, that picture is much more detailed. Diversity means students hail from all over the globe: from bustling Indian and Chinese cities to mountainous Balkan countries, to African tribal communities.
“We have 61 languages spoken here, which creates unique challenges,” said Erin Wolohan, an interventionist who works with students learning English. “We have many, many languages and cultures, so we have to come up with unique solutions.”
Many students speak half a dozen or more languages, a result of growing up in several countries, as their families fled areas and resettled in others. Gloria speaks Swahili, Kirundi, Kinyarwanda, English, French and Portuguese. She has already graduated out of the English Language (ELL) Learner program, and her accent is barely detectable.
“I feel great. I am surrounded by different cultures. I feel at home,” she said.
Unique Challenges
Newcomers arrived in waves to the Grand Rapids area from Bosnia, Kosovo, Vietnam and other Asian countries, Burma, Nepal and Africa. Many have moved to the Kentwood area because of housing availability. In the 8,856-student Kentwood Public Schools district there is an English-language learner population of 1,686 students, 19 percent of the district.
“For the past two decades Kentwood Public Schools has experienced a demographic shift within our student population,” said Shirley Johnson, assistant superintendent of Student Services.
One way the district has responded is to provide cultural competency training to all employees to address the numerous challenges: logistic, communication and cultural. Teachers help with transportation and in reaching parents who don’t have cars or driver’s licenses, and who work second- and third-shift jobs. The district spends approximately $60,000 annually on translation services.
Two Kentwood schools, Meadowlawn Elementary and Crestwood Middle, have Newcomer Center programs for which students receive full-time, intensive ELL instruction. The high school also has many newcomer classrooms. Recently, in ELL social studies teacher Carlotta Schroeder’s class, students from Nepal, Burma, Congo and many other countries finished their first-semester exams.
Damber Chhetra, who came from Nepal five years ago, said his family came for better opportunities. “It’s a better life. I can have a better education,” Damber said. “I like the way the teachers teach. It’s different. They are so nice to the students.” He wants to become a computer engineer.
Burundi refugee student Gloria Tungabose gets her lunch.
Students Settle Where Housing is Available
Families often live in apartments, and children who come unaccompanied by parents live with foster families and have church sponsors. Many high school students, without families to take them in, begin living on their own.
There are several reasons the Grand Rapids area became a destination for refugees, Johnson said. Grand Rapids participated in the resettlement of refugees even before 1980, when the Refugee Resettlement Act was passed authorizing more organizations to help facilitate refugee migration to the U.S. Some local agencies include Bethany Christian Services, Lutheran Social Services and West Michigan Refugee Education & Cultural Center.
Placement of refugees is based on housing availability. Resettlement agencies work with landlords to get fair and affordable housing, said Susan Kragt, executive director of the West Michigan Refugee Education & Cultural Center, located in Kentwood. Because Kentwood and Grand Rapids school districts have newcomer center schools, most refugee children end up in those schools.
School is sometimes entirely new for refugee children. Many come from non-urban areas without formal education systems, putting them behind academically. For teachers, nothing can be assumed or taken for granted, ELL Interventionist Wolohan said. Even the volume of someone’s voice can seem aggressive to non-English-speaking students.
Students have cultural differences and experiences that affect attitudes toward education, the roles of men and women and how they interact with each other. They may have never seen snow before, so aren’t prepared for cold winters. There’s also pressure from family members for teenagers to go straight to work to make money, Wolohan said. Kentwood teachers encourage them to stay in school because they will make more money in the long run, she said.
Adjusting to the Culture
A key piece in breaking down barriers is helping students and their families adjust to U.S. culture, as well as educating teachers about their needs, Kragt said.
The center works with refugee students through its School Impact Program. The program provides orientation sessions for students and parents; holds workshops for educators on the resettlement process and the cultural backgrounds of refugees; hosts panel discussions with refugee students and offers eight-week peer support groups for middle- and high-school students.
Workshops inform educators about students’ prior school experiences, and alert teachers to the symptoms of culture shock and trauma that can leave refugee students feeling isolated and depressed, Kragt said.
“Unfortunately, sometimes our kids get bullied,” she said. “We talk about the trauma of what they’ve been through, but sometimes it can be more traumatic trying to fit into a new culture… Their classmates are looking at them going, ‘You’re different.'”
Also, Wolohan added, it’s incorrect to assume students are here because they want to be. While many came for a better life, often they wish they could have stayed in their own countries.
“It’s a lonely life, it’s a hard life. They know they are better off than where they were, but it wasn’t their idea,” she said. “It’s not like they woke up one day and said, ‘I want to live in America.’ We have that misnomer that we think they should be so thankful to be here, and they are grateful, ultimately. But that doesn’t mean they don’t miss their families. If they could go back to their homeland and have it be more free, they would.”
Nepali refugee students Bhim Chuwan, Chandra Subba and Jog Sharma have come a long way to be part of the EL program at East Kentwood High School.
A Welcoming Environment
Teachers are encouraged to lead by example in the classroom, giving other students “less permission to pick on that kid,” Kragt said. “These kids are not going to be the ones going around introducing themselves to everybody. They need people to reach out and say, ‘Hey, how are you?'”
The big picture is to help students acclimate permanently. A successful school experience is crucial to refugee families’ fortunes in America, Kragt said. Without students learning English, graduating high school and going on to college, refugees are apt to stay in an “enclosed community” apart from the broader society.
But in schools where there may be 21 foreign languages in one classroom, teaching is “a pretty daunting task,” she noted.
Her center provides after-school tutoring and other programs to help students catch up. More broadly, it strives to provide a welcoming culture for refugee resettlement in West Michigan. When Gov. Rick Snyder last fall sought to pause the state’s acceptance of Syrian refugees due to terrorism concerns, Kragt accused him of “leading with fear rather than reason” in a teleconference sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Western Michigan.
“We have a strong history of welcoming refugees (in West Michigan), and a lot of people are informed about refugee resettlement,” she said. “That’s allowing us to maybe push back on some of the misinformation that’s out there.”
Just walking the halls at East Kentwood High School helps dispel fears and promote acceptance. Students are often dressed in native clothes, speak their native languages and celebrate their traditional holidays, all while navigating the U.S. education system.
Wolohan said refugee students and the perspectives they bring add to the richness of the district.
“It’s an education you can’t buy,” said Wolohan, who’s had four children in Kentwood Public Schools. “What we have here doesn’t exist anywhere else. I think this is one of the most diverse schools in the country. For my own children, it’s given them more acceptance of other cultures and also a world view. It brings the world to them.”
That kind of attitude is one of the district’s core values, Assistant Superintendent Johnson said.
“We believe that our district reflects the real world. As students prepare to live and compete in a global market place, they will fully appreciate the rich differences among their peers, understand the value of diversity and be equipped to successfully interact within a multicultural society.”
SNN reporter Charles Honey contributed to this article.
When playing Minecraft: Education Edition in class, Southeast Kelloggsville students know what they’re building: math skills.
The worlds they join and build, connected via computers, require design, collaboration and awareness of dimensions.
“We are using geometry because geometry involves shapes and angles,” said Andrea Ronzon-Contreras. “In my opinion, I love it because you get to connect with people and build your own world.”
Teacher Tina Brown’s students have used the program, an educational version of the popular Minecraft video game, since January, after Brown’s $135 grant request to pay for the program was approved by the Kelloggsville Education Foundation.
Since 2005, the foundation has added $80,000 in hard-to-come-by supplemental dollars to fund projects and educational items for teachers and create a scholarship for high school students. It recently awarded three scholarships to graduating seniors: Kiara Glekle, Jaime Tiesma and Joshua Hotelling, who received $2,000, $1,000 and $500, respectively.
By hosting an annual golf outing, a Texas Hold ‘Em event and other fundraisers, as well as collecting voluntary payroll deductions from staff members, the foundation funds a wide array of projects. They include author visits, ukuleles, art display cases, technology, document cameras, video projectors and items for a classroom store.
From left, Eduardo Villagrana, Dax VandeBunte, Aaron Chaparro and Juan Ramirez build worlds together
Brown said the foundation makes possible “extras” that enhance education, such as the Minecraft program, which she wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Next school year, she plans to use the program for assignments that also connect with the fourth-grade science and history curriculum, like building a three-tiered government and designing windmills with a limited budget.
“The whole idea is to build a foundation to give back to our students,” said Lori Martin, who is in charge of marketing for the district and serves on the foundation. They eventually hope to create an endowment.
A board of directors, consisting of Martin, a business services staff member, teacher, principal, board of education member, secretary and parent, chooses to fund mini-grant requests from teachers each fall, for implementation second semester.
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Lazevious Steele sat snugly in a barber chair as Duane Bacchus used a razor to perfect his fade. The next day, Lazevious and other seniors walked across the stage sporting fresh haircuts to receive their high school diplomas.
Bacchus, a Kent School Services Network community coordinator, had opened the high school’s new barbershop — inside the men’s dressing room attached to the high school auditorium — for the first time the day before graduation, sprucing up seniors with free haircuts before their big send-off.
Next school year he plans to open twice weekly for boys to come in for a trim, and to participate in the ages-old style of barbershop banter that occurs when men gather for haircuts. Bacchus, whose job is to connect students and families with resources, has always included his own style of conversation and counseling in his duties. With the shop he’s adding a cool spin on how he serves Godwin Heights: a “neighborhood” barber where all are welcome, just like those he is used to.
“The barbershop has always been a place where nothing is off limits,” said Bacchus, who remembers “dying of laughter” from the conversations he heard in barbershops as a child. “There was a lot of wisdom and honest talk.”
Senior Gregory Sloan got a fresh style for graduation, thanks to Ace of Faces barber Chris Turner (Photo courtesy of School News Network)
Talking (Barber)shop
Bacchus, who cut friends’ hair in college for money, said he already regularly cuts several of his students’ hair. He had the idea of opening an in-school barbershop as a way to incentivize good behavior and build relationships.
With full support from the administration, he recruited his own barber, Chris Turner, from Ace of Fades in Grand Rapids, and another local barber, Miguel Estilo, who works at Maily’s Beauty Salon, to volunteer. Masonic Grand Rapids Lodge No. 34 donated three barber chairs.
Bacchus said he hopes to get more barbers to offer services, as well as a stylist for girls to get their makeup, nails and hair done for dances and special events.
“A haircut means so much to a kid in terms of confidence and your outlook on life,” he said. “You feel better about yourself, and it tends to make everything else easier.”
Turner’s also on board with helping students feel good and building up their self-esteem. “For some reason, people open up in a barbershop. It’s kind of reminiscent of a counselor. I listen and give feedback. Mostly, that’s what people need.”
Junior Sean Back snuck in for a quick trim.
‘Makes Me Feel Loved’
While Bacchus added the finishing touches to his hair, Lazevious reflected on how it felt to have someone care enough to give him a free haircut before graduation.
“It makes me feel loved and cared about,” he said. “I know Mr. Bacchus is a good barber. For him to take time out of his day to do this, it really means a lot to me.”
Part of his job is developing trust, Bacchus said.
“To sit down and have somebody take machines and run them through your hair, there has to be established trust,” Bacchus quipped. “That trust goes across the board. If you trust them to cut your hair, you trust them enough to talk to them as well.
“For me this project kind of embodies what KSSN is, making the school the center point of a kids’ life scholastically, bringing them community.”
Kent School Services Network is a countywide program that brings social and medical services to students’ schools and homes. It is run through a partnership with local districts and Kent ISD.
As they hung around the shop, students chatted.
“He’s a friend,” senior Gregory Sloan said of Bacchus. “He’s there if you need someone to talk to.”
“I don’t have to go to graduation with all this wild stuff on my head,” said senior Cameron Gray, touching his hair.
“(A barbershop) is a good environment. I think it makes everybody bond,” said senior Jamail Clark.
Next school year, students will be able to buy haircuts with Godwin Bucks, earned for good behavior through the school’s Positive Behavior Intervention Supports program.
David Britten remembers standing in the lunchroom at Lee Middle/High School. He was the new middle school principal after leaving an elementary-principal post at Wayland-Union Schools Schools in 2002. He looked around at the group of rowdy teenagers and thought, “What did I do? Why did I leave Wayland, where I enjoyed the job and the school and the kids?
“I didn’t understand the culture these kids come from,” he recalled. “I felt a little panicky about it.”
But Britten didn’t run away. He attached himself to the class of 2008, seventh-graders at the time, whom he called a group of funny “pain in the rears.” Among them was the first undocumented immigrant student Britten had ever been aware of in his school — a bright, high-achieving girl who already worried she wouldn’t be able to attend college.
“That group helped me understand better what was going on,” he said.
At a Halloween bash, David Britten poses sans makeup with a student.
Bonds began to grow between the retired Army officer-turned-principal and students who at first expected his style of discipline to include pushups and laps.
“Within no time I was like, ‘I wouldn’t change these kids for the world.'”
Instead, Britten has spent the past 15 years working to change the world for them — and to help them, one day, change the world.
Britten, 62, is a paradox. One moment he says he doesn’t like people, yet he’s thrown himself full-throttle into a career of helping improve the lives of some of the most vulnerable children in Kent County. He loves technology, saying he prefers to do things in anonymity on a computer, and he plans to spend a lot of time with a new robot he’s ordered. But he looks giddy at the idea of bringing his robot in to show students.
He’s admittedly cynical, but has paved the way in reforming education in his district from the ground up while shedding light on the positives in the community.
David Britten joins students during Girls on the Run
He’s a military man whose own life was shaped by the regimen and discipline of serving his country, but he is a true Lee Rebel at heart.
Where He Was Supposed to Be
Britten is stepping down June 30 after nine years as superintendent and a total of 15 years working in the district. The Board of Education recently hired Kevin Polston, principal of Lakeshore Middle School in Grand Haven Public Schools, as new superintendent, beginning July 1.
Britten has spent many days, from dawn to dusk, leading teachers in a way that builds community, and battling state and national policy he believes is increasing inequity in education. He is present in the school buildings and athletic fields attending student programs and events on days, nights and weekends.
The demands have taken a toll on his energy and fitness, but he said he never wanted to give less for the students. Until his last day on the job, he wants to be there.
Britten takes time for a selfie on the bus.
“I feel like that’s where I’m supposed to be. If I’m not there to do that, why did I choose this career?”
Lee High School civics teacher Brian Cahoon said Britten’s involvement has even extended to cooking for students at band camp and helping to chaperone 30-plus seniors on their senior trip to Florida.
“I believe Dave has touched the district by his dedication to, not only his job, but the Lee community as a whole,” Cahoon said. “I think one would be hard-pressed to find a superintendent who is as visible, and often an active participant in a wide range of student activities.”
Lee High School science teacher Steve Rierson provided a short list of Britten’s typical activities: “On any given day, Mr. Britten can be observed eating with kids, walking through hallways, subbing in classrooms, attending sporting events, interacting with parents and faculty throughout the district, even traveling to Lansing in hopes of changing policy at the state level.”
For David Britten, being superintendent was about being present with staff and students.
A Hometown Boy
Britten, who lives in Cutlerville, spent several childhood years in the Godfrey-Lee community, frequenting neighborhood stores and playing in the woodsy area near the Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center (where he and his staff have recently opened an outdoor learning lab.) He knows the area’s nooks and crannies, the stories of each building and street, the background of the schools and the people who have impacted them over the decades.
“I’m a homeboy who likes local history,” he said.
With more time on his hands, he plans to immerse himself in that history by writing a book about the Godfrey-Lee community. An outspoken advocate for social justice, he also plans to study and speak out against issues affecting the country and areas like Godfrey-Lee: the growing economic gap, segregation and political gerrymandering.
He plans to visit relatives he hasn’t seen in decades and, if all else fails, simply enjoy time with his wife, Penny, whose hobbies include photography and horseback riding.
David Britten is stepping down June 30 after nine years as superintendent
“If I just carry her camera and saddle around for the rest of my life, that’s fine. I owe her.”
Britten has played a big role in the district during a pivotal era in its history. During his time as superintendent, Godfrey-Lee has grown from 1,600 to nearly 2,000 students, with its Hispanic population increasing from 32 to 78 percent. In the once solid blue-collar neighborhood where many residents worked at General Motors, more than 90 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-priced lunches.
Britten offers some historical reference: The district dipped to around 850 students in the ’90s as the community aged. After 2000, many immigrant families began moving in with large families and establishing roots.
For them, Britten and his staff work hard to make the schools the center of the community.
“One of the things I like about this community, and which seems to have increased since I’ve been here, is there seems to be a growing interest in the community from the community members,” he said, noting the draw of affordable housing, new neighborhood groups and a decrease in transiency. “This is Wyoming’s only true walkable community.
“We are interested in the community being a part of us,” he added. “If we are strong the community is strong.”
Pushing for Education Reform
His tenure has also been a time of school funding challenges, increased high-stakes testing, and other threats to public education. For these things and many more, Britten has been an outspoken advocate for improving education by getting to the root of problems. He never holds back in calling out bad policy or politicians who seem to have interests other than children in mind.
“If we are only focused on the test scores,” he asserted, “we have already lost the war.”
To improve his district, Britten embarked on a huge human-centered design project, sealing a $250,000 Steelcase grant, to study the true — as opposed to perceived — needs of families in the district. The end goal is education reform, getting students away from the 20th-century education model, truly engaged in their learning and preparing them for jobs of the future with the necessary skills. The work will continue under Polston.
“Dave has never strayed far from the needs of the community,” said Lee Middle High School science teacher Vlad Borza. “Despite the educational woes and rigors of the state requirements, he has remained an advocate for the needs of our community and bringing equity to a district in need of extra support.
“He is unapologetic in fighting for the needs of students and families, whether it is by pursuing a competitive technology program or advocating for the legal protection of those in our district. It is evident that his focus has always remained on their needs.”
From Factory Worker to U.S. Army Officer to Educator
Britten was born in Grand Rapids, the second of seven siblings. At age 4, he moved to a new Wyoming subdivision at 36th Street and Burlingame Avenue SW. In kindergarten, he attended East Newhall Elementary (later East Elementary School, in Wyoming Public Schools) before going to Holy Name of Jesus Catholic School in first grade, when his family moved to the Godfrey-Lee area.
He attended Godfrey-Lee schools through his freshman year when he moved back to the Wyoming Public Schools neighborhood, where he attended Rogers High School until he graduated in 1973.
He enrolled in Grand Valley State University and worked at Keebler Company, eventually dropping out of college until he was laid off from the factory job. One day in 1974 he and a friend, on a whim, decided to enlist in the National Guard. His friend wasn’t accepted, but Britten was.
He was called back to Keebler and worked there while also serving as a reservist. By 1977 he noticed a lot of his Rogers High School classmates were graduating college. Britten was dissatisfied.
“I thought, ‘I’m not going to do this factory stuff the rest of my life. … Standing there watching Pop-Tarts come out of a cutter all night long was just not what I want to do.”
He re-enrolled at GVSU, and recognized Penny, who had attended Godfrey-Lee, during his first day of class. He “stalked her for two days” before she asked him what he wanted. He wanted a date, and the rest is history. They married in 1980 and have one son, David.
After earning an education degree, Britten began teaching at Muskegon Catholic Central High School, but he began an active duty tour two years later. That was the beginning of a military career, from which he retired in 1996. While in the service, he earned a degree in educational leadership.
Lured Back by Schools
Soon after retiring, he was asked to apply for the elementary principal position in Wayland and got the job. Six years later he was asked to apply for the Lee Middle School principal position. He was tapped for the superintendent position in 2008, a time of turmoil in the district, when there was poor morale between the administration and staff. Britten didn’t want the job, but feared no one else would step up that could rebuild trust.
Britten has spent the last days of the school year with students, watching them play during field day; checking out high school seniors’ capstone projects on careers they are interested in; riding the Millennium Force roller coaster at Cedar Point amusement park with band students; attending a community event led by Blandford Nature Center focused on increasing the owl population. As always, where students and staff gather, he’s there.
He’s a voice, a presence, a fighter for what Godfrey-Lee students need to be successful in the country he served.
Just a hometown boy who likes history.
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Senior D’Nyszha Brand was accepted into six colleges: Baker College, Ferris State University, Wayne State University, Grand Rapids Community College, Aquinas College and Western Michigan University.
She’s decided to attend GRCC for her associate degree before transferring to a university, maybe Ferris, to major in business and minor in psychology. “It’s the cheapest way to go and I will save more money,” she said.
D’Nyszha said she probably wouldn’t have applied to so many colleges, or realized how to meet her postsecondary goals, if it weren’t for the Michigan College Access Network representative who helped her. Jeremy Bissett had an office at Godwin Heights for 20 hours a week until mid-spring, helping students apply, submit and complete all the other paperwork to get into college.
“It was very helpful because I would go to my mom and ask her what to do and she would say, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know,'” said D’Nyszha, who will be the first person in her family to go to college.
Bissett reminded her often about deadlines and what was required. “He helped me in so many ways. Not only did he help me with my (college) stuff, he taught me different life skills,” she said. Without him, she added, “I probably would have only applied to GRCC, honestly.”
From left, seniors Josiah Lozada and Maurie Vinson, MCAN adviser Jeremy Bissett, and seniors Mya Jordan and Mamie Hai celebrate college acceptance.
Accepted, Again and Again
At Godwin Heights, students recently gathered in the hallway wearing #accepted T-shirts to celebrate their “yes” notifications. A total of 111 of the 137 seniors, or 81 percent, were accepted at 27 colleges.
That’s a great start for students at Godwin Heights, where more than 80 percent come from financially disadvantaged families and 59 percent of seniors this year could be first-generation college-goers.
Godwin Heights received an Innovative Program Grant from MCAN to fund a dedicated college adviser, Bissett. It’s just one way the network supports Michigan schools in helping students access college.
“We are super proud of Godwin’s results,” said Sarah Anthony, MCAN deputy director for partnerships and advocacy. “We knew being in that community would be serving low-income, first-generation college students and students of color.”
The goal of Lansing-based MCAN is to increase the percentage of Michigan residents with degrees or postsecondary certificates to 60 percent by the year 2025. According to 2014 Census figures, 39.3 percent of Michigan’s 5.2 million working-age adults (ages 25-64) hold a two- or four-year college degree, an increase from the previous year’s rate of 38.4 percent. This is the sixth year in a row that Michigan’s degree attainment rate has increased.
College acceptance letters hang in the hallway of Godwin Heights High School.
But there’s work to be done. According to data from MCAN, out of every 100 ninth-graders in Michigan, 73 graduate from high school on time; 45 enroll into postsecondary education within 12 months of graduation; 32 persist from their first to their second year; and 18 graduate with a degree within six years.
According to Mischooldata.org, within six months of graduation, 55.8 percent of 2016 Godwin Heights grads were enrolled in a two- or four-year college or university.
Building a College-Prep Culture
Bissett spent much of his time meeting with students, ensuring they were on track with the application process and walking them through applications for financial aid.
“The biggest benefit I see with the MCAN partnership has been the one-on-one time,” said counselor Tish Stevenson. “An adult sitting down one-on-one is immensely important.”
Bissett said he was just a piece of the puzzle. At Godwin Heights, there’s a multi-pronged effort to prepare students. It includes college visits; work to improve literacy across all content areas; and preparing students for the workforce or college by developing communication and collaboration skills. Staff provides many opportunities to meet college representatives right at school.
“It’s putting that option in their purview,” said counselor Kristi Bonilla. “We get them in tangible contact with people and places.”
“I think they are establishing a culture there that is college prep, and are getting more students wanting to be engaged in that,” Bissett said. “They are doing great work.”
After being added to the state’s Priority Schools list in 2012, Godwin Heights also put many measures in place to boost achievement. In 2016, the high school received a five-year School Improvement Grant, approved by the Michigan Department of Education, that will include allocations of $750,000 a year for the first three years and $500,000 a year for the final two.
The work is paying off. The school was removed this year from the state’s Priority Schools list, and has climbed from a 0 percentile rank in 2012-2013 to a 27th percentile rank in 2015-2016.
Said high school data coach Kristin Haga, “We are moving in the right direction.”
Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.
Donnie Alford owns his past with a perspective on where he comes from, where he is today and why it all matters that seems mature beyond his 18 years. The Wyoming High School senior, who graduates June 1, tells his story with the precision and detail of a writer, stating his intent to reach out to struggling young people.
“I kind of want to tell you everything, because I want to be an inspiration for kids not to give up,” he said as he began our interview.
In true autobiographer form, he starts at the beginning: “I was born Sept. 4, 1998.”
Julian and Stacey Goodson took Donnie in as a son
Donnie’s family lived on the South Side of Chicago in the Robert Taylor projects, public housing that was notorious for drugs, gangs and violence. “You couldn’t sit above a certain level in the house because you had to be afraid of stray bullets that would fly in the home,” he said. “We always tried to stay below couch-level because it was dangerous.”
Yet many residents, including his family, had few other options. “When I was 5 or 6 years old, they tore down all the the project housing in Chicago, which forced thousands and thousands of mostly African-Americans to be homeless.”
For Donnie, that piece of Chicago history was real life. After a few nights sleeping in an old Volkswagen, he joined his relatives– 14 people total – in a three-bedroom apartment where he lived for the next two years.
“My bedroom wasn’t a bedroom; it was a really big closet. I used my clothes as a bed. I didn’t get my own mattress until I was in fourth grade.”
Donnie Alford smiles just talking about basketball
Moving to Grand Rapids
Donnie’s mother, Shawntay Hill, left Chicago for Grand Rapids to search for work and a new place to live. She came back for Donnie when he was almost 9-years-old.
Life in Grand Rapids was “me and my mom against the world,” he said. Fortunately, Donnie found happiness on the basketball court.
“Basketball is my passion; it’s my life,” he said. “Basketball saved me from some rough times. If it wasn’t for basketball, quite honestly, I would probably be doing what the majority of kids that come from my situation do -– the gang and drug life.
“Basketball was like a safe haven. When I was on the court all my problems would disappear for those split seconds when the ball was in my hand.”
But that passion didn’t yet transfer to the classroom, because Donnie didn’t see the point of trying. By then, his father was serving a more than 20-year prison sentence. “My father gets out of prison when I am 24 years old,” he said. “I can’t remember a moment when my father was free.
Donnie Alford looks to Julian Goodson as a father and example
“I didn’t care about school because, why would I? I didn’t think I was going to be anything in my life.”
When Donnie was 10, his mother gave birth to a boy, Armontae, and Donnie soon embraced the idea of becoming a big brother. But when the baby was just two months old, Donnie’s mother had a stroke and a heart attack, shaking the little stability he had in his life.
Shawntay spent the next seven years, from age 31 to 38, in a near vegetative state at a nursing home, never relearning to walk or talk. Her absence left a huge void in Donnie’s life.
“My mom was like my best friend. Growing up, I was an only child. We did everything together. She was the one who taught me to play basketball.”
With his mom in the hospital, Donnie spent the next few years living with aunts in Grand Rapids and Wyoming, content to get by with D’s in school.
Teacher Kellie Self could see the potential Donnie had in her sixth-grade class, even though he battled frustration and anger.
“I remember him being a brilliant kid who was an incredible writer,” she said. “I knew how capable he was, and that he could accomplish anything he put his mind to. However, I don’t necessarily think he believed that himself yet.
“Honestly, I didn’t treat him any differently than I treat any of my other students, but he responded differently to my encouragement and nurturing -– he literally thrived from it. I kept telling him he could do anything he wanted, and just how smart I knew he was.”
Donnie Alford earned a scholarship to play basketball at Olivet College
Self remembers one particularly rough day for Donnie.
“The social worker and I were in the hallway talking with him and she asked him what was wrong. He screamed, ‘I just want to see my mom!’ ‘You want to see your mom? I’ll take you there!’ the counselor replied. He couldn’t believe we could actually do something like that.”
Self ran back to her classroom and grabbed an African violet flower someone had given her and told him to give it to his mother. “I still have the photo of him next to his mom holding the flower, with with a huge smile on his face.”
Enter the Goodsons
Fate twisted Donnie’s freshman year, when he met Stacey and Julian Goodson, foster parents to many children including a good friend of Donnie’s. They took Donnie in when he was almost 16.
“They were always on me about my grades, he said. “It was like a culture change. The first semester I had straight D’s. I finished the second semester with straight B’s.”
Stacey and Julian both reached Donnie in their own ways. “Julian did it with basketball,” Donnie said, but it was much more than that.
“He told me he cared about me and he loved me. I never had a man in my life tell me he loved me. He actually cared about me and wanted me to be great. He didn’t just see me as a kid living in his house. He felt I was his son.”
Julian remembers Donnie coming to them with a fierce sense of independence. But after learning he was part of the family, Donnie grew leaps and bounds as a student and community member.
“One of the biggest things he learned was how to be a part of a family structure and unit,” Julian said. “He showed incredible leadership among his peers and siblings. … It was really just seeing what type of potential he had. He was able to tap into his potential and he found he was good at a lot of things, not just basketball.”
Julian was the male example Donnie needed.
“Growing up I never seen a successful African-American man,” Donnie said. “I didn’t really know what that was. Julian was there to show me African-American men can be successful, because I didn’t believe we could in this world. He showed me we could. He gave me hope.”
Stacey reached him with what seemed to Donnie like super powers.
“Stacey does so much,” he marveled. “She works, coaches sports, comes home, deals with all our problems, cooks dinner and still has time to laugh and be a good mom to all of us. She’s like superwoman. … I have mad love for her.”
The love is mutual.
“I’ve seen him mature a lot, as far as being an older sibling,” Stacey said. “I’ve also seen him mature in his priorities, what they are and what they need to be aligned with as far as academics and so forth.”
For so long, college wasn’t on Donnie’s radar. No one in Donnie’s family had graduated high school since the early 2000s, much less gone to college. But as his grades improved and more opportunities in basketball came his way, that began to change. The Goodsons gave him the opportunity to play travel basketball, and his team won every weekend.
Promises to His Mother
While Donnie began to excel, he remained hopeful that his mother would someday get better. But last year, doctors informed him she was 98 percent brain dead following a major medical setback. At that point, he said, “I realized my mom was never going to be the same again.”
He and relatives made the heart-wrenching decision to pull her off life support. “I watched my mom suffer for seven years. It was quite honestly the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life.
“My mom was a free spirit,” he added. “She loved to have fun, to laugh and talk and joke and dance.”
Shawntay Hill died May 15, 2016, exactly one year before Donnie was interviewed for this story.
“When my mom died, it was surreal. I couldn’t believe it. It was literally like a part of me died. I lost my best friend and my mom at once. I didn’t connect with anyone like I did with my mom.”
He found support at school from his friends and teachers. “The thing I like about Wyoming is it’s like a family.”
Before his mother died, Donnie made some promises to her.
“I promised my mom I will graduate. I would graduate high school and I would go to college and graduate from there. I told her I would play collegiate basketball. I told her I will do it all for her, and so far I have kept every word.”
‘A Poor Kid from the South Side’
To keep his word to his mother, Donnie, a guard for the Wyoming Wolves, had to up his game in a major way. Always an energetic, up-tempo player, he described himself as average overall. But senior year, “Every time I stepped on the court I was one of the best players.” He ended the year as all-conference honorable mention and all-area honorable mention.
He also improved thanks to the Goodsons, both coaches in Wyoming, who gave him access to the gym and weight room during the summer before his senior year.
“I worked out the whole summer and my motivation was my mom.” He got up every day at 7 a.m., and headed to the track for two hours to run the bleachers wearing a 25-pound weighted jacket.
He would go home for breakfast and then head back to the gym. From noon to 2:30 p.m. he was in the weight room and from 2:30 to 6 p.m. he was in the gym. “I would make 2,000 threes a day, 5,000 free throws, I would dribble until my arms were numb. I would do sprints until my feet hurt.”
He was also inspired by varsity boys basketball coach Tom VanderKlay, who demonstrates life skills to help athletes be successful men in the long run, Donnie said.
Donnie has received a scholarship to play basketball next school year at Olivet College, where he plans to major in personal training and physical therapy.
“Sometimes it doesn’t feel real,” he confessed. “At one point I was content with being like everybody else (from similar backgrounds): I’m going to either end up in jail or sell drugs. That’s the only way out. That’s all I knew.
“Who would ever have thought a poor kid from the South Side of Chicago would go on to play college basketball?”
Always Improving
Donnie’s GPA has climbed from a 1.5 his sophomore year to a 2.7. He hopes to end the year close to a 3.0.
He’s looking forward to his next step.
“My plan is to go to Olivet and dominate. I don’t plan on being an average player. I don’t want to be average anymore. I want to be great.”
Donnie said he grateful to many people who have supported him.
“Most of the kids who come from my situation, they don’t get out of Chicago, let alone finish high school and go to college. To be the first college student (from his family) is going to be pretty amazing. I’m going to continue to work hard and make sure I am the first college graduate.
“I’m just blessed.”
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KISD Assistant Superintendent, Organizational & Community Initiatives and Legislative Affairs
Kent County voters on May 2 turned out to the polls and expressed confidence in their schools by approving a ballot proposal that will provide crucial support to all 20 districts in Kent ISD. The enhancement millage will yield approximately $211 per pupil for each of the next 10 years, beginning with the 2017-18 school year.
These dollars are essential to help our schools meet the needs of students, maintain programs and create more connections to the world of work as we prepare young adults for careers.
They also create a small, but stable and reliable source of revenue for schools as Lansing grapples with perennial budget problems, which make it very likely legislators will be tempted to drain even more money from the School Aid Fund for higher education in coming years. Currently, more than $600 million is going out of the School Aid Fund to support community colleges and universities.
Just a week earlier, the Senate Fiscal Agency projected a $2.072 billion hole in the general fund budget in five short years, due largely to the road package that passed in 2015 with a commitment to use general fund dollars to augment the fuel taxes dedicated to road repair. Other factors contributing to the projected deficit were elimination of the Personal Property Tax on business and the sales tax on the difference between the price of a new vehicle and the customer’s trade-in.
Legislators are already responding to the pressure. In the wake of the bleak general fund projections, Republican Rep. James Lower of Montcalm County introduced HB4261 to divert some $430 million from the School Aid Fund to the general fund by reversing the decades-long policy of applying all tax refunds to the state’s general fund.
Amid all of this, Kent County taxpayers sent a clear message to Lansing: Education is important. Students deserve better. We need to adequately fund our schools to ensure a positive future for our children, and our communities.
So, again, on behalf of our students and our schools, thank you. For those of us who have devoted our careers to the education of children and the betterment of our communities, it is reassuring to know our community values our commitment to this work. Cheers!
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Math teacher Luke Wilcox, who is credited with playing a large role in creating a culture of success at East Kentwood High School, is the 2017-2018 Michigan Teacher of the Year.
Wilcox, who began his teaching career at East Kentwood 16 years ago, was honored today with the award, announced by State Superintendent Brian Whiston, at an assembly attended by students, educators and Wilcox’s family. He was selected from between 60 and 70 nominees.
Wilcox said he is thankful to many, including teachers who served as incredible mentors to him and his students, who “inspire, push and help me to grow.”
“You guys are the reason I come to school every day,” he told students in the audience.
He succeeds Tracy Horodyski, a Kenowa Hills teacher who was the 2016-17 MTOY.
Wilcox teaches Advanced Placement statistics, with a very high percentage of his students passing the AP test. He has served as a leader in school improvement since East Kentwood was named a state Priority School four years ago. Since then it has leapt from the 4th percentile mark, meaning 19 out of 20 schools in Michigan were deemed better, to the 49th percentile today.
Tyler Zahnke succeeded in school with help from math aide Doug Morse, left, and Nancy Calvi, Kent ISD consultant for the visually impaired.
Tyler Zahnke sat down at his musical instrument – aka, his Toshiba laptop – and proceeded to open a wonder-box of sounds. He called it “Welcome to the Tape.”
Out the sounds came, tumbling one into the next: Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 1; an announcer spouting “Hi boys and girls!”; daffy cartoon voices; a snippet of Van Morrison’s “Moondance”; and then several voices stitched together to say, “Welcome to a very special Mini Nifty mixtape, five years in the making.”
“That is how the CD begins,” Tyler said with some pride, after the soundscape ended. It was, he explained, an artistic form called “sound collage.”
“Sound collage is where you take pieces of collected audio and basically glue it together,” Tyler said. “After all, the word ‘collage,’ from French, means ‘gluing together.’”
Tyler knows whereof he speaks when it comes to sound. He creates great quantities of it, both in collage and more traditional musical forms. All unaided by sight — and perhaps enhanced by his lack of it.
Blind since birth, Tyler has turned his inner vision loose on music, as well as writing, while navigating the challenging terrain of academics required for a high school diploma.
He has done so with plenty of support from MySchool@Kent, a partly online and partly face-to-face program offered by Kent ISD that provides flexible, online learning for students with special circumstances. Tyler is the first blind student to graduate from the program – a fact of which he is rightfully proud.
“I managed to do it,” Tyler said. “I can’t believe it, personally.”
Perseverance plus Help
He actually completed his graduation requirements late last year, but plans to walk in the commencement ceremony of Northview High School East Campus, his base school, in early June. More than 35 MySchool@Kent students are expected to graduate from their home districts this spring.
Tyler finished his requirements both by online instruction and by coming to MySchool classes at the Kent Career Tech Center, where he worked for long hours with an aide on math — the toughest subject for a student who couldn’t see the shapes and angles of a problem.
Tyler Zahnke sits in on a jam session earlier this month at the Fulton Street Pub (photo courtesy of Rachel Buzzitta)
Principal Cary Stamas credited Tyler’s perseverance for his success, as well as MySchool’s flexibility and dedicated staff members who helped him.
“It starts with Tyler and his motivation and hard work to achieve,” Stamas said. “It really speaks to what our goal is, which is to try to figure out what roadblocks there are for students to achieve their goals. And how do we use the flexibility we’ve been given to innovate and alter things in a way that makes the experience something of value to them, and something of integrity.”
Flexibility also came from Northview Public Schools, where officials arranged for Tyler to enroll in the alternative East Campus school and connected him to MySchool. They enabled him to stick with the program after his father died two years ago and Tyler moved to live with his mother in Rockford.
Through all the challenges, Tyler drew on assistive devices for the blind as well as his own intelligence. As graduation came within sight, he applied himself more diligently, coming to the Tech Center three or four days a week when only two were required.
“I’m very proud of him,” said Nancy Calvi, a Kent ISD teacher consultant for the visually impaired who’s worked with Tyler since he was 3. “I’m so glad he made it. A lot of the reason he made it is he’s just a smart kid.”
A Bright Musical Mind
Tyler’s smart all right. That quickly becomes obvious when you first meet him, and he begins citing websites, musicians and authors with ease. He seems to know the Internet like the back of his hand, or rather the touch of his fingertips.
He’ll casually mention Jonathan Bowers, a mathematician and father of googology – “the study of ridiculously large numbers,” as Tyler puts it. Or he’ll tell you about the singer Imogen Heap starting a fair trade organization for the music industry that he supports, then break into singing her song “Let Go.”
Indeed, Tyler aims for a career in music, both as a studio session musician and as a composer for music libraries that provide sound for TV, radio and movies. And he plans to continue advocating for visually impaired people as a member of the National Federation of the Blind of Michigan.
He has composed numerous tracks, both solo on his Yamaha keyboard and with fellow advocate for the blind and musician Elizabeth Kazmierski of East Grand Rapids, with whom he has a longtime group they call Mini Nifty. “Welcome to the Tape” is from a longer work in progress he’s composing with her.
Tyler believes being blind and a musician enables him to see, in a sense, things other people don’t. He said he is proud of his blindness.
“I just think it’s a unique look at life,” he said firmly. “There’s a whole scene the rest of the world doesn’t seem to be knowledgeable about, a whole culture.
“Being a musician, I get to hear about composers and artists that the rest of the world seems to miss. The same goes for blindness. I know the world has discovered Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, but for goodness’ sake, have you discovered Kevin Reeves? I don’t think so,” he added with a laugh.
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Buffered between Godfrey-Lee’s Early Education Center and an industrial building is a swath of wilderness complete with trees, brush and a winding creek. It’s the habitat of birds, small mammals and on recent sunny afternoon, kindergartners.
“Forts are our forte,” joked Deb Schuitema, a math coach who joined in the effort with physical education teacher Julie Swanson to design the new Outdoor Learning Lab’s natural play area.
Kindergartners were challenged to make their own shelters after listening to a story called “A House is a House for Me,” by Mary Ann Hoberman. They used branches and colorful pieces of cloth to design their shelters. Some added rocks and leaves turned into decor, and, when finished, they went inside their “houses” and peeked out of the sheer material.
Kindergartners walk along the rock grotto, counting stones as they go.
Around them, another class joined a representative from Blandford Nature Center in exploring the area for bird habitats. A third class spread out on the grassy hill to read.
“We have had five different classes out here at the same time,” said Swanson, who introduces those in her classes to different ways to use their muscles and develop balance by climbing rocks and jumping from stump to stump. “A year ago, nobody would have come out here.”
The lab, planned for two years, now includes a rock grotto and a sandy play space where toy trucks stay busy excavating. And there’s a nearly complete stage made of logs. Plans are to add a slide built into the hill, a teepee surrounded by native plants, a texture garden and a student-designed nature path.
Physical education teacher Julie Swanson checks out a pine cone with kindergartners
“We really want to make this part of the kids’ everyday experience,” Schuitema said.
The City of Wyoming, Dykema Excavators Inc., and Tontin Lumber Co. donated rocks, downed trees, other materials and services. Last fall, Women Who Care of Kent County, a group that supports non-profit groups, donated $12,000 to the district for outdoor education.
Kindergartners hoisted up big sticks, adding another layer to a fort, and wrapped material around it.
“I like making homes,” said Arielly Sanchez. “We can go in them.”
As class ended, Swanson let out a huge, wolf-like howl, signaling to kindergartners that she needed their attention. They howled back, running up from their shelter-building to head back inside.
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Free visits for active-duty and veteran military families will be offered by the Grand Rapids Children’s Museum during its upcoming Military Weekend.
