Civil and Municipal Education October 2025

Gladwin Community Schools, MI

October 29, 2025

Preparing Students for What’s to Come

Achieving Excellence through Collaboration, Respect and Student Success

Gladwin Community Schools is a district guided by a mission to provide a safe and caring environment where teachers and students have the opportunity to be successful and responsible citizens. Superintendent Chuck Frisbie emphasizes the district’s strengths, from strong support for students and purposeful planning, to preparing graduates for life beyond the classroom.

“We’ve done some strategic planning with the community and with the staff in the last couple of years, and we’re pretty proud of where our test scores are,” he imparts. “It’s all about what we do with enrichments and interventions every day, K-8. And then when they reach high school our goal is to have every junior and senior in a CTE class, in a work study, or dual enrolled as a junior and senior.”

Supports for Every Student

One of Gladwin’s standout features is the support it provides to students. Elementary Instructional Coach, April Medina, details, “We have people in place that watch their growth and determine what intervention they need and provide it for them, and then we watch data. So it’s more of an individualized approach.”

Further defining itself as a supportive and engaged district, Gladwin Community Schools has invested in instructional coaches at every level. “About 20 years ago, we put coaches in each of the two younger buildings, our K-2 and our 3-5, and basically they’re the support system for the instructional staff,” relays Medema. “Since then, we’ve put a coach on at the junior high, and then we do the same coaching model, just in a different format at the high school. We’re one of only a few districts that have as many coaches as we do.”

The coaches monitor curriculum initiatives, track data, organize parent engagement, and provide teachers with day-to-day support. Junior High Instructional Coach Kiersten Hale adds that this also creates a bridge between the teacher and the district. She notes, “The instructional coaches are a good liaison between administration and what’s really happening in the classroom, that can help identify best ways to support administration as well as teachers.”

Like every district, Gladwin faced setbacks from COVID, but Superintendent Frisbie is proud to report that student outcomes are back to pre-pandemic levels. “Prior to last year, we identified that the levels were coming back, but attendance was lagging,” he highlights. “So we put somebody actually in charge of attendance, changed some of our attendance policies, and this last year, we actually got our attendance back to pre covid levels too.”

Enrichment, Technology and AI in the Classroom

As a one to one district, Gladwin students are introduced to technology early with lessons beginning in kindergarten. “We have Chromebooks for all of our kids, plus we have iPads for young fives. We also have 30 to 45 minute special times each class, where the kids go and learn about typing and different technology things,” says Medina.

At the same time, the district has been intentional about not overusing devices, and hands-on learning is also a priority, especially in the younger grades. “In the preschool to second grade building we have interventions that we run for all levels of kids, so our higher kids are getting enriched, which means a lot of STEM activities,” she says. “Our math program that we just adopted two years ago is more of an investigation, so that no matter what level the kids are at, they’re being pushed a little bit in that hands on type learning.”

Junior High Principal Dave Mausolf shares Gladwin’s progressive approach to artificial intelligence. “This winter, we offered an initiative where we invited staff and students to bring about AI proposals to the central office, basically to look at different tools that were out there,” he explains.

“We did have good participation in it, and we have purchased licenses for a number of different AI tools. Some are for students to use for their studying and for their test preparation. Some are for teachers to use to increase engagement and to offer opportunities for students to get more instantaneous feedback.” The district has also formed a committee to look at the security and policy implications of AI.

Support Beyond Academics

Gladwin has built a strong network of support for students and staff, and mental health is a priority. Hale elaborates, “We have social workers and behavior specialists in each of the buildings that can help support the students. We also have lessons about good character and how to make good decisions in the real world.”

Student surveys help to identify students who are at risk academically or in other areas of their lives. “We also, just this summer, created a mentorship program to help support the teachers and provide different mentorship opportunities,” Kale remarks. “I think our district does a very nice job of taking care of the teachers and offering support.”

Alternative Education and Career Tech

The district is also rethinking its approach to alternative education. “We have a traditional alternative education program at this point,” Frisbie outlines. “We’re trying to improve it, and it’s kind of an emphasis this year. We’ve got a committee formed with two counties of schools to look at combining our alternative ed at a community college that’s local to all of them.”

That college is Mid Michigan College, which has offered to provide incentives and scholarships to participating students. “The big thing would be that we could put four teachers there, so they’d get their four cores with a regular teacher. They’d have an administrator. They’d be close to our new CTE center, so they could take dual enrollment CTE, all of those things,” Frisbie conveys. “That committee has been formed. Hopefully, the biggest thing will be finding the site and then we go from there.”

Gladwin currently offers 13 Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs in partnership with local businesses. Mausolf expands on the benefits of these opportunities. “Students can spend a portion of their day shadowing people, learning the ins and outs of a job,” he explains. “With this they can decide if that is, in fact, the career path they want to follow and if it is, then they build those necessary skills so they’re able to have a leg up on other candidates when they complete school.”

Hale underscores the enthusiasm of community businesses who are eager to participate. “We have a local lumber yard and a construction company that has kids every year. We have medical facilities. We have PT, restaurants, anything in the community, they’re very open to taking students on.” The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has been a particularly strong partner for the district. Frisbie elaborates, “We have kids that work with the DNR. They go to the river, they do research, they plant trees for the DNR. We raise trout at the high school. So that’s a really strong part of the work study program as well.”

Investing in the Future

On the facilities side, Gladwin has been careful with its resources. “When I took the position, we had a 55% fund balance, which, that’s unheard of, and very good,” touts Frisbie. By investing some of those funds, the district has generated significant returns. “We made $250,000 the first year and last year, and this year, I would expect, if rates are the same, to make about $400,000 on some of that money,” he continues.

At the same time, the district is looking ahead to bond financing to address secure entryways, parking, and the remodeling of a 90-year-old junior high school. As a school of choice district, Gladwin has seen an increase in enrollment, another reason for the upcoming bond. “We have two districts in our county. They used to be pretty similar, about 1400 each. We’re around 1700 now, and the other is around 850,” Frisbie reports. “We’d like to add some classrooms for early childhood programming at the elementary school, because we just don’t have the room that we need for it at this point.”

There are also long-term plans for a 200-acre wooded lot that is owned by the district. “We’re looking to do some outdoor education things,” he says. “Maybe possibly have a spot for kindergarten kids to go there for a semester of outdoor learning, that type of thing. We’ll see where that goes.”

Looking Ahead

The staff mentoring program is a top priority for Gladwin Community Schools in the coming months. “We haven’t lost a ton of staff, but they are starting to get younger,” acknowledges Frisbie. “60% of our staff now has five years or less experience in this district. We want to make sure that they understand what the expectations are to be a Gladwin employee, and we want to create a mentoring program that’s going to help retain people and improve our staff.”

Along with this, the focus will be on artificial intelligence and outdoor education, ensuring a well-rounded experience that encourages excellence and future opportunities after graduation.