Justin Ralston, Essexville-Hampton Public Schools Superintendent, is mid-way through his third full school year with the district. Before joining Essexville, he worked in and around Washington, DC. Since he started work in 2022, Ralston has held community listening sessions, started up Student-Superintendent Cabinets, worked on a Strategic Plan for the district, and announced plans to build a regional STEM center.
Route Bay City spoke with Ralston to learn about recent progress, and what’s in store for the future.
QUESTION: What’s going well for your district?
ANSWER: I think a number of things are going well, but the first I will highlight is student achievement. We’ll be releasing more in the coming weeks, but particularly our secondary schools performed phenomenally on the state assessments and SAT this past year. In a number of areas, we led the (Bay-Arenac ISD) with different grade levels and how students performed in English, math, science, and social studies.
We just shared that Garber High School senior Alyza Costa is a National Merit Semifinalist. That was exciting. I think it also is a testament to what we have been doing. We have been re-thinking what high school looks like. That conversation has been going on for just over a year. I think last year’s data is an indication that, because of these conversations, we’re starting to do things differently and look at things differently. Typically, it takes time for test results to really show, but I think that was a contributing factor. We’re in the middle of overhauling the way we’re approaching the high school experience for students and trying to do everything we can to make sure they’re college and career ready.
The other thing that I think is going incredibly well is we had our largest enrollment increase in 20-plus years. The data that I have access to goes back to 2007 and this is the largest increase we’ve had since then. I think this is only the third or fourth time we’ve seen an increase at all. It’s been declining for the most part, as is most of this area. It’s a national trend, not just Central Michigan, so it is really exciting to see that uptick in enrollment.
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Photo courtesy of Essexville-Hampton Public SchoolsGarber High SchoolQ: What are you doing differently at the high school?
A: The board requested that I create a task force to look at a couple things. One was to look at a profile of a graduate. What are the qualities we want our students to have when they graduate? The other piece is to look at that profile and determine how are we hitting or falling short in those areas and what should we do to address whatever gaps may exist.
I pulled together a task force and over four or five months we had a lot of conversation around the number of credits. Garber requires more credits to graduate than anyone else in the ISD. We have not done a comprehensive look at our courses and what we’re offering, but we’ve heard through our strategic planning process that we want more creative electives. We want courses to be tied in more with real world issues, community issues, and other factors. The task force came up with a recommendation to look at incorporating project-based learning. It’s not necessarily a new concept, but it’s new to us and it’s not overly common in the region.
We have gotten overwhelming support and engagement from our teachers. I’m incredibly happy with how the process is going so far. The teachers union has been incredibly supportive. The ISD has been supportive.
We have a four-year agreement with a nonprofit organization to make this transition. This is year zero, a planning year. Our school leadership team and all of our Garber staff went through a two-day professional development at the start of the school year. Since then, the school leadership team has been working through a number of pieces that we’re going to be working on, adopting, and trying to integrate.
A very simple concept that I’ve been using to explain this to folks is everyone knows you take biology in high school, everyone knows you take English in high school. Why not have Bio Lit? Why not combine those classes so students can look at genetic modifications and then write argumentative essays based on their research on whether it is ethical or not ethical? There is so much integration we can do.
We are very committed to finding what are the best practices that we can integrate into our style and model to continue the legacy our district has of academic excellence.
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Q: What challenges do you anticipate the district facing in 2025?
I recently had the opportunity speak on the State of K-12 education for the region at the
Bay Area Chamber of Commerce State of Education luncheon. I did not want to shy away from the harsh realities of what public education is facing. It’s a lot.
The political division we see in this country is having an impact on our schools. We experience it every single day. Our job is to educate every student in every family, period. It is important that we work across differences to make sure our school is a place for everybody. The negative energy that is being fueled by political ads and the heavy amount of campaigning leading up to the election, that is what our teachers and our staff and our administrators are experiencing every day.
Social media has been incredibly detrimental in a lot of ways. There are certainly some positive pieces to it as well. Our district uses social media to share information, so there are positive elements. But in terms of cyberbullying, students being able to see different things that perpetuate negative thoughts … there are a bunch of different issues with social media.
Attendance has also been an issue nationwide. Attendance has not rebounded since COVID-19. We have not reached pre-pandemic attendance levels. We’re really seeing that across the board. It’s not just high school. We’re seeing attendance problems in kindergarten. We’re trying to address the issues of learning loss, trying to address mental health needs, trying to address all these things, and then students aren’t there and that just further complicates it.
School violence and threats of school violence have continued to plague all of us. I don’t know of a school that hasn’t been touched by this. I have a folder that I keep all the communication I’ve been sending out regarding this issue. I’ve been here with principals and police until almost midnight trying to navigate different issues. It has been further compounded by a distrust between the public and its schools. People think we aren’t communicating enough or we’re purposely covering something up. I think that frustrates people. My goal is to never cover anything up, but I also have an obligation to protect student confidentiality and to protect ongoing investigations.
Behavior has been a huge challenge, particularly in the elementary schools. As I talk to my colleagues across the country and other superintendents in the region, elementary is just incredibly challenging right now. Our biggest behavior issues, hands down, are in our elementary schools.
Staffing is another issue. We have been fortunate with staffing, but there’s also this idea of teacher shortages. I don’t think there’s so much a teacher shortage as much as there are people out there who are able to teach and have the degrees but have chosen to leave this career because of how complicated and challenging it is. It’s impacting our ability to operate.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been another piece that has been integrating its way into the schools. The question is how do we go about this in a thoughtful, ethical way? How do we leverage this as an opportunity? We’re still figuring it out.
The final thing that I think is an overarching piece that we’ve been challenged by is isolation. I think a lot of it connects back to COVID. We’re seeing across the board, with civic organizations and churches and all kinds of social groups, declines in enrollment. There’s a strong argument to be made that we are some of the most isolated people we’ve ever been, even though we have technology at our fingertips. I think that isolation has challenged public schools because people aren’t having conversations. When people aren’t coming to community gatherings or community meetings and able to talk about something that’s going on with their schools, it allows people to create their own narratives that may or may not be true.
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High school and junior high students serve on a Student-Superintendent Cabinet, which is designed to elevate the voices of students in the community.
Q: Since COVID-19, student scores on standardized tests have dropped. Even before COVID-19 closures we saw early literacy rates dropping. Are we starting to see those numbers turn around? What is the district doing to help students gain ground, especially since the pandemic ended?
A: I want to emphasize that I think our teachers are working incredibly hard. I did celebrate the test scores and the gains we have seen in the secondary schools. Our elementary students are struggling. Early literacy is a huge struggle, and I think it’s getting further compounded by some of the behavioral needs and social emotional needs that we’re seeing. That’s why I think pre-school and early child-care opportunities are important. We in year 2 of our first
GSRP (Great Start Readiness Program). Seeing the number of needs in that program is incredible. I think we’re looking at some creative ways to be able to better partner with families, to be able to have conversations around what does it mean to be kindergarten ready?
Q: Recently, the state created programs such as Michigan Reconnect and the Community College Guarantee to help people earn degrees beyond high school. How does your district plan to help students take advantage of these opportunities?
A: I think is a huge opportunity for our students, on top of dual enrollment. I think that some of the work we’re doing at Garber very much connects to ensure that this is available to all students. We also understand that all students may not want to take advantage of this opportunity. We need to be equally concerned about ensuring that those students also have meaningful opportunities to be able to enter some type of college career, specialized training, whatever it is for them. This past year, over 200 college credits were awarded to students at Garber, which is an incredible feat. It’s essentially a Bachelor’s Degree, plus some, if you just count the credits. I really do believe that as part of the work we’re doing with the re-design piece at Garber, this is very much going to connect to that.
Q: In March, Essexville-Hampton Public Schools announced it had received a $1 million grant from the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity to build a regional Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) center. Where does the STEM center project stand now? (Read more about the regional STEM center in this March 7 Route Bay City article.)
A: We’re still actively working to move forward with that. Our board is heavily involved in looking at some creative solutions to secure the rest of the funding with the support of the community. I think this can be a game changer for our district, but also for the region. We’re really looking at 21
st Century skills that students need to have when they leave. The concept of a STEM center is absolutely aligned to that, so I’m very excited about that work. There is still a lot of work because we’re still trying to secure the rest of the funding. That’s our biggest barrier right now.
Q: What is one thing you wish the community at large understood about public schools? What do the public schools need from the community?
A: It’s important to listen, ask questions, share, talk, show up … If folks are willing to listen, to ask questions around what it is they don’t know, question things that may not seem quite right or that they have genuine concern about, I think that’s incredibly important. I think showing up, being able to see what it is the students are able to produce, is really important.
Speaking specifically to the business community, internships, sponsorships, employment opportunities, apprenticeships, guest speakers, are also incredibly important. The Chamber of Commerce, for example, has done a great job of doing some career exploration days where they’ve helped coordinate this. Working with different organizations is critical.
Anything we could do to get folks to listen, ask questions, show up, and be part of the system is incredibly important. Sometimes there’s this idea that schools only matter when you have a child in them. The reality is schools are cultivating the next generation. Continuing to have a presence or awareness and involvement is absolutely integral to the success of public schools.