Lansing School District Superintendent Ben Shuldiner is preparing to hand the reigns over to a new interim superintendent, as he enters the final weeks of his tenure.
Shuldiner has led the district since 2021. He’s leaving to take a superintendent position with Seattle Public Schools in Washington state.
Under his leadership, Lansing schools have seen improvements in several areas, including higher attendance and graduation rates.
“I attribute all of that to having just incredible educators and families and students all wanting what's right for our students,” he said. “We've really fine-tuned and honed in on instruction, instruction, instruction, and also in kind of cleaning up some of the systems that weren't working very well.”
Shuldiner said the district followed up with students who were in danger of dropping out, reached out their family members and made home visits to ensure they made it to school. He adds the district’s teachers have also been piloting different approaches to math work.
The state’s most recent Student Test of Educational Progress results, also known as M-STEP scores, showed improvements for nearly all 3-8 grades for math and English.
Still, Shuldiner said there’s more work to be done.
“What we need to still get better with is our is our proficiency rates. There's no excuse that our math and English scores are as low as they are now. Now, gave they doubled in some state, in some grades? Yeah, but that's still not good enough,” Shuldiner said.
The district saw massive increases in Advanced Placement pass rates and participation during the 2024-2025 school year. Notably, the number of students passing those exams jumped from just 16 in the 2021-2022 school year to 118 last school year, representing a 638% increase.
Shuldiner said while he’s proud of those gains, it’s also a sign the district was starting at a “pretty low level.”
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“What I hope happens, whoever takes this seat, I know that we have the systems and structures in place for those to get better and what I really want to see for all of our children is just increased proficiency and increased attainment,” he said.
Other areas where he hopes to see better SAT scores, more progress is in math scores, especially for junior high school students and improved English scores for all grades.
As Shuldiner prepares to leave Lansing at the end of January, the district has already selected an interim superintendent to fill the role.
Lansing First Deputy Superintendent Jessica Benavides will take the reins Feb. 1, ensuring a smooth transition as Shuldiner moves on to his next chapter in Seattle.
Looking back on the successes of his tenure, he said he’s learned Lansing is an incredible place.
“It punches above its weight, it is really just a terrific place that had, you know, some things that needed to kind of be fixed a little bit made a little bit better, and now I think that the foundation is incredibly good, and I really look forward to reading about and hearing about and visiting all of the great, wonderful things that are going to happen moving forward,” he said.
Shuldiner’s last day is January 31, 2026.
