Superintendent

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GLPS Families,

Believe it or not, we are heading into the last weekend of the 2024-2025 school year! As we wrap up the school year next week, we know that there are a lot of fun events planned, and students and staff are excited about the upcoming summer break. 

Since June starts tomorrow and next week’s message will be all about graduation and the end of the school year, I will also take this chance to highlight June celebrations. June is Great Outdoors Month, so make sure you spend some time outside, and there are a number of parks and outdoor spaces to enjoy around our community (I mention a specific one later in my message!). June is also LGBTQIA+ Pride Month and National Caribbean-American Heritage Month, during which we acknowledge and celebrate, respectively, the contributions of members of the LGBTQIA+ community and those with Caribbean-American heritage to our school communities. In addition, June 14th is Flag Day, which commemorates the adoption of the American flag on June 14th, 1777. June 15th is Father’s Day; thank you to all of the dads in our district who make a positive impact on the kids in our schools! Finally, on June 19th, we also celebrate Juneteenth, which is recognized nationally as a celebration of the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States. We have a lot to celebrate in June!

Speaking of celebrations, today I am sharing the last data sets from our beliefs survey. Here they are:

Belief Statement 3 - We believe in an inclusive learning environment where every person is valued.
How often do you see GLPS live up to this belief?

This data shows us that 82.7% of respondents feel that we live up to this belief on every day or most days, and 93.4% feel that we live up to it on at least some days. While those are certainly positive results, that means that 6.6% of our families feel as though we follow through on this belief on few days, or never. Particularly around a belief like this, which emphasizes a sense of belonging, we have to continue to strive to get to 100%, because all students and families need to feel as though they are valued here.

Belief Statement 5 - We believe in a safe, inclusive environment where students can explore their interests and learn the skills they need to thrive in their communities.
How often do you see GLPS live up to this belief?

For this belief statement, again we had high levels of agreement, as 85% of respondents feel as though we live up to this belief statement on all or most days, and 93.9% feel as though we do on on least some days. However, like belief statement number 3 above, we need to continue to strive to reach the 6.1% who do not feel like we live up to this belief the majority of the time, because allowing students to explore their interest and build the skills they need to thrive in their communities in a safe and inclusive environment is essential to helping our kids, and by extension, our community, continue to grow.

As this is the last in my series of data analysis messages, I think it is important to highlight the fact that from the perspective of a large part of our school community, we are living up to our mission, vision, and beliefs that we laid out in our strategic plan back in 2022. We are proud of our work, and proud of the continued upward trajectory of GLPS. However, we are also keenly aware that we are not meeting the needs of all families in these areas, so we will continue to work to grow, improve, and create meaningful learning experiences for our kids and families. Thank you to those who responded to the survey, and thank you for taking an interest in understanding how our school community feels about our work. 

Speaking of community and creating an inclusive environment, before I wrap up today, I wanted to take a moment to share some information from the City of Grand Ledge. As you may have heard me say before, as a school goes, so goes its community, and as a community goes, so goes its schools, so our partnership with the city is important. To those ends, I encourage you to check out this weekend’s Farewell Fundraiser event at Jaycee Park in downtown Grand Ledge. There will be a number of free kids activities, including pony rides, fire trucks, music, and more, and the fundraising portion will support the city’s plans to remove the old playground at Jaycee Park and install a new fully inclusive, ADA accessible, universally designed playground in the park, which would provide access to all kids in our community, regardless of ability level. As I have shared in my last couple of updates, our beliefs center on access and support for students, as well as our role in our broader community, and this project the city is undertaking is an intersection of both.

As I close out this week’s message, I want to again share that I am proud to be the superintendent here, proud to be a part of the staff of the district, proud to be a Grand Ledge  community member, and proud to be a GLPS parent. Thank you for all you do to support us, and for giving us the opportunity to work with you and your children every day. Enjoy the last week of school next week; as always, I am #proudtobeacomet!

Dr. Bill Barnes
Superintendent of Schools