Enrollment for the new Lansing Tech High School has begun according to an announcement made at the April 6, school board meeting.
The school will be held at a familiar building in Lansing that has been home to other career and technological education (CTE) programs.
“We have this great resource here in Hill High School that hasn’t really been utilized and it’s a large footprint. And I’m really happy that the district is in the position where we can reinvest in this resource that not only helps the community, but also helps our students have another path towards being successful once they leave our district,” Rachel Willis, LSD board president said.
The Hill is a vocational center known for training students firsthand and giving them confidence for their future, which is the goal for the new high school.
“… we know that having children learn academics is incredibly important, but we also know that so many kids wanna have life skills, they wanna have job opportunities, they wanna be able to get their hands dirty, really dig into incredible learning opportunities…,” Ben Shuldiner, LSD superintendent said.
Lansing is already a CTE district, so this addition will be more career based.
“Reading, writing, arithmetic, ELA, math scores, all of that’s important. It is equally as important that we have career technical ready students,” Willis said.
The Lansing school district notices that most CTE programs are only available to upper class students, overlooking 9th-graders. The school will get a head-start right when they enter high school.
“When you walk-in in 9th-grade, it’s not just that you’re going to start, let’s say doing building trades but your math class will incorporate what it means to build a house …,” Shuldiner said.
The school is proud to offer four hands-on programs including fire science and medical, computer science, culinary arts, and building trades.
“The city of Lansing, we need firefighters … so being able to generate firefighters and EMTs and EMS from our own students right here in Lansing, that’s exciting,” Andy Schor, Lansing’s mayor said.
Lansing Tech is now only looking to host a freshman class until 2026 when the district will expand to include all grades.
Lansing School District board members and partners are encouraging all Lansing parents with 8th-grade students to enroll their children so that they can be a part of this new experience.
“The idea that we are going to be doing not only a separate school where kids are going to come and feel like this is their own but giving them the opportunity to learn math, English, science, history through the work that they are choosing to do, that is really powerful and that is really great,” Shuldiner said.
The doors of Lansing Tech are set to open in September of 2023. Enrollment information can be found on the Lansing School District website.
