Lapeer Community Schools is pleased to announce the hiring of Michelle Bradford as the new Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the District. Bradford is currently the principal at Lynch Elementary.

Bradford graduated from Lapeer West in 1990 and has served the District both as a teacher and an administrator since 1997.

“Michelle has been a vital part of our district for many years,” said LCS Superintendent Matt Wandrie. “She now assumes this role and will, without doubt, maintain the forward momentum we have as a district to continue improving our academic program for all students.”

Current Rolland-Warner Middle School assistant principal Ryan West has been appointed as principal of Lynch Elementary.

“Ryan has proven himself to be an effective leader with a tremendous work ethic,” Wandrie said. “He has the right attitude and disposition to be an excellent elementary administrator.”

The position of Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction was created as a result of a structural review of the District’s central office following the recent resignation of Ron Reed, Director of Secondary Education, and the approval of a request for reduced assignment by Heather Vance, Director of Elementary Education.

“In these challenging financial times, it’s vital that we continue to seek out efficiencies in operation whenever and wherever possible,” Wandrie said. “We have a long history of committing an exceptionally high level of our resources to the classroom, and that will continue.”

To wrap some numbers around the statement, Wandrie points to the most recent publication of Bulletin 1014 by the Michigan Department of Education (MDE). The Department annually ranks school districts based on the share of their funding that is used for business and administration costs. LCS is proud to be in the bottom six percent of all districts in the state in this important ranking.

This proposed realignment plan reduces those costs even further for the 2014-15 budget. The realignment will save the District as much as $100,000 in the coming school year.

Bulletin 1014 can be viewed online at Michigan.gov/mde.