Michigan school district uses gas cards, camp trips to boost graduation rates

• Lansing School District is poised to have an 87% four-year graduation rate, the highest in district history
• High schools focus on student attendance in a state where chronic absenteeism is high
• Leaders credit success to making school engaging, providing different transportation options and offering several ways for credit recovery  

LANSING — What does it take to graduate high school in four years? 

Some of it is obvious: taking courses and making passing grades. 

But what happens when life gets in the way? 

Enter: graduation specialists, school counselors, weekend school, camp visits, free meals, gas cards and many phone calls. 

That’s all happening at Everett High School in Lansing School District, where “the kids know they can’t fall between the cracks anymore,” said Billy Hastings, a community engagement specialist and assistant football coach. 

He’s part of a large team that includes school counselors, graduation specialists and principals dedicated to ensuring students show up to class and graduate on time. 

It seems to be working. 

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Preliminary numbers show that 86.7% of Lansing students who started high school in 2020 graduated in four years — up from 64.1% in 2019 and the highest rate the district says it has ever had. 

The district’s four-year graduation rate rose 10 percentage points over the prior year and now tops the most recent statewide rate of 81.8%.  (Data for the class of 2024 is expected to come early next year.) 

Lansing began its new approach to boosting graduation rates in July of 2021, when Superintendent Ben Shuldiner took over the district, he said. It’s already topped its goal of graduating 85% of students on time by 2027. 

School and district leaders credit intentional monitoring of student data, high-touch communication with students and parents if a student isn’t showing up to school and giving students multiple opportunities to make up missing credits.

Sometimes that’s at Saturday school. Other times, it’s a weekend in the woods  where students enjoy the outdoors but also 15 hours of math. 

“We have made school more engaging and more inviting over the last three years,” Shuldiner said. 

That might be a recipe for success in a state where chronic absenteeism numbers remain stubbornly high. Nearly 30% of Michigan K-12 students missed 10% or more school days this past academic year. Lansing’s chronic absenteeism rate was nearly double that, at 59%.

Poverty is a big factor in student absenteeism, affecting parents’ ability to navigate illness, work and get children to school. Districts with the greatest percentage of economically disadvantaged students have the highest rates of chronic absenteeism. Those with the fewest poor students have the lowest.

All told, 40% of economically disadvantaged students were chronically absent last year, compared to 16.1% for non-economically disadvantaged students, according to a Bridge Michigan analysis. 

In Lansing, Everett staff members aim to understand what factors might be prompting a student not to come to school such as unreliable housing or a sick parent. 

“Sometimes when you’re dealing with those things, school is not the number one priority, because you’re trying to survive,” said school counselor Vijay Fitzpatrick. 

Hastings, the assistant football coach and community engagement specialist, conducts home visits for students at risk of being chronically absent. In late November, he visited seven homes — with mixed success. 

At a few homes, no one came to the door. In two instances, Hastings was told the student no longer lives there. One person told Hastings she was homeschooling her child now.

If he learns during a home visit that a student no longer lives at the address given to the school, he logs that information and tries to find where the student is instead.

There are times where Hastings is invited into families’ homes, he said. 

“We just want to make sure they are going somewhere,” Hastings said. 

Reliable transportation can also be a factor for student absenteeism. 

The district provides public transportation passes or gas cards to get students to school instead of a yellow bus. If you miss the yellow bus, you’re out of luck. If you miss the city bus, you can catch the next one. 

Shuldiner said the investment in these transportation options “is totally worth it.” 

School districts need to understand that “the clock starts ticking” once a student enters ninth grade, Shuldiner said. 

Everett staff members also audit seniors’ transcripts. Each high school presents data to the district regularly about which students are on track, or not, to graduate in time. On the whiteboard calendars in a district conference room, Shuldiner has attendance rates written out for each day. 

“A lot of times, schools will think of their graduation rate as how many of their 12th graders graduated,” Shuldiner said. “The issue is, what if the kid never made it to 12th grade?”

School counselors, teachers or principals can recommend Lansing students attend credit recovery over a weekend at the Ebersole Center, a 238-acre nature area, with five miles of trails, a 14-acre lake and 100 bunk beds in Wayland. 

Generally, these weekends include 15-40 students, Shuldiner said. They work on credit recovery online or specific make-up assignments from teachers. But they also take time to play games, watch a movie and explore the outdoors through hiking or other recreational activities.

Ben Botwinski, director of the Ebersole Center, told Bridge that credit recovery weekends previously focused around a specific course students needed to make up as a theme. Now, the weekends have a theme — like tailgating.

The camp experience is an opportunity for students to “be away from the hustle and bustle of their lives,” and can take away some of the family or other social pressures making it hard for school work to get completed, Shuldiner said.

Jeremy Singer, an assistant research professor at Wayne State University, told Bridge that it sounds like Lansing is a holistic approach to improving the rates. 

There’s a “microscope” on student’s transcripts, there’s efforts to build trust amongst families and the district is “intensively attending to what their graduating students are missing” and offering options to make those up, he said.

Using online platforms for credit recovery has tradeoffs, Singer acknowledged, but getting a high school diploma is still a critical signal for employers. 

Those with more education credentials tend to make more money than those who don’t. State data shows five years after earning a high school diploma, the median annual wage is $29,700 a year compared to $19,300 a year for those who did not complete a diploma. 

“The stakes are high, collectively, and on the individual level, having that degree is helpful when you look for that job.”