Williamston Schools: Bond Updates, Big Wins, and Snow Day Decisions

If you’re looking for an inside scoop on what’s happening in Williamston Community Schools, the latest episode of the Hornet Hive podcast is a must-listen! Hosted by Dr. Christopher Lewis, this episode welcomes back Dr. Adam Spina, Superintendent of Schools, for an engaging update on the district’s exciting initiatives, ongoing projects, and recent recognitions.

The conversation opens with gratitude for the community’s support of the bond initiative, which will positively impact students for generations to come. Dr. Spina shares detailed updates on the progress of these bond-funded projects, including the flagship investment: building a new Explorer Elementary School. Listeners learn about the posted schematics, new renderings, and changes such as a safer, more efficient traffic pattern for school drop-offs and pick-ups. Construction is set to begin in March, with the goal of opening the new building by August 2027. These improvements are all about creating better, safer spaces for students and staff.

Beyond the elementary school upgrade, Dr. Spina discusses additional projects like the new HVAC system installation at the community pool (slated for May–July 2026) and repaving the high school parking lot. The team is committed to clear communication, promising monthly bond updates on the district website and direct notifications to impacted community members.

The podcast also celebrates the district’s academic achievements. The high school was named to the AP Honor Roll for the seventh time and continues to excel on AP exams, reflecting the hard work of both students and teachers. The accolades don’t stop there—Williamston High School, Middle School, and Explorer Elementary recently appeared on U.S. News & World Report’s list of Best Schools, highlighting the district’s dedication to quality education.

No episode dealing with Michigan schools would be complete without touching on snow days! Dr. Spina describes the careful, safety-first approach used to evaluate weather conditions and the real-world balancing act of school closures, emphasizing communication and student well-being.

This episode is not just an update—it’s a celebration of progress, achievement, and community spirit. Whether you’re a parent, student, or resident, the Hornet Hive is your direct line to what’s happening in Williamston schools. Tune in and stay connected to the heart of your educational community!

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:20]:
Welcome back to the Hornet Hive. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Lewis, one of the members of the Williamston Community Schools Board of Education. Really excited to have you back again this week. And, and this week we are bringing back Dr. Adam Spina, our superintendent of Schools for the Williamston Community Schools. Give us a little bit of an update about what is happening in the district because there's a lot of things happening since last we talked and we wanted to bring you up to speed. Dr.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:45]:
Spina, thanks so much for being here today.

Dr. Adam Spina [00:00:47]:
Thank you, Chris. I think right now as we're recording this, we just wrapped up a successful first semester and looking forward to finishing the year strong during the second half of this thing. So appreciate the time to share some more nuanced details about what's going on at wcs.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:01]:
You know, and talking about nuance at the board level, we've been having a lot of conversations lately about the bond and the projects that we're doing, and there's a lot of things happening and, and I know you've been sending some emails out, but I thought it would be good to have you give a little bit of an update on where we are with the bond and some of the big projects that are coming and. And some of the other things that are happening with the bond right now.

Dr. Adam Spina [00:01:22]:
Well, first and foremost, we remain extremely grateful to the community for the overwhelming support of the bond initiative and the projects that it will support for our students over several generations, many generations, we hope. And so we're trying to do our best to keep everyone updated in terms of what's going on. Anytime you have a community invest that much money in the schools, we want to make sure that everybody has readily accessible information. And so just a reminder to anybody listening, we post bond updates monthly on the district website. There's a box right at the top of the homepage for bond updates, and that'll give you information on the timeline, the overall scale, the project and scope in terms of what's being accomplished, and then photos and updates on a monthly basis in terms of what's been done. So, moving through December December into the new Year, the planning phase of some of the major projects has been completed and we were able to take final bids and proposals to the Board of Education for approval. And most notably, that includes what I call the flagship investment from the bond, which is the building of the new Explorer Elementary School. We have that posted schematics that we sent out recently, as well as some additional renderings so people can kind of see what it looks like most notably, the new traffic pattern that will be built into the elementary campus, hopefully make dropping students off and picking them up easier and safer than what we currently have.

Dr. Adam Spina [00:02:43]:
The big piece too, that I've recently learned through some of our meetings is the timeline for the project. And of course, this is always subject to change with construction, but we plan in the middle of February 16th will be the installation of temporary parking at Explore elementary for for staff to park during the day. That'll be in the Explorer lot. And then as soon as that is done, the construction fencing is going to start to get built. Towards the second half of February, with construction starting the of March, we anticipate that project. The construction management company tells us that project will go until August of 2027. I'm still kind of building in that it might go a little longer, December of 2027, but they're confident they can have it done by August of 2027. And so if that's the case, then this year's third graders would be fifth grade and they would be able to occupy that school as well as our upcoming second and first graders.

Dr. Adam Spina [00:03:33]:
So it's exciting to start, get the timeline and actually know there's going to be some construction here in the next few weeks. Beginning on been working on designing for several years. Another project that I want to make sure the community is aware of is the installation of new H Vac unit at the community pool. And while this one's not as extensive as building a new school, it is going to impact community members because during that time where that H Vac system is going to be installed, the pool is going to be closed. Right now we're still working on trying to finalize dates, but I'm fairly confident in saying that May of 2026 through mid July of 2026. So bas the end of the spring, early summer, the community pool is going to be closed. During that renovation, they're going to actually have to take the H Vac unit and bring a crane in and drop it down through the hole in the roof, install it, and then obviously close up the structural changes that need to be made. Also, the old one, the old H Vac in the pool, which the pool was actually built around, is going to need to get removed.

Dr. Adam Spina [00:04:33]:
And so that's going to take a few months to get done. So we're going to start sending out more formalized information to members of the community pool and fitness center once we know the dates for sure. But at this point, I'm fairly confident in saying. Saying it's going to be May, June and part of July for that project to take place simultaneously to that at the high school. The parking lot is also going to be getting repaved. We anticipate during that period that visitors and members of our attending the fitness center and any other enrichment programs that are taking place at the high school will need to park in the athletic field parking lot and there'll be a pathway that'll be maintained from the athletic lot where the soccer baseball tennis complex is over to the fitness center so folks can walk that way and enter the building to use the facility during that project. We think that's going to take about a month to a month and a half to complete. So probably June, early July of 2026.

Dr. Adam Spina [00:05:21]:
But again, we'll be sending out more information once we know those dates for sure.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:25]:
Exciting times. Thank you Adam for sharing all of this. I know that all of us on the board are really excited about what this is going to do for our schools and for our students, and we're really excited about seeing the future starting to come alive with all of these new investments in the district. And speaking of excitement, I know that there also has been some excitement around some awards that the district has gotten and I wanted to allow you to share some of the great news.

Dr. Adam Spina [00:05:52]:
Yeah, it was nice to start off the year with some recognitions at a national level for our schools. We'll get more information out about these. But first the the high school was named to the AP Honor Roll for the seventh time overall in the third straight year by the College Board. AP Honor Roll recognizes the number of percentage of students that are involved in or enrolled in Advanced Placement courses at but also how they do on the Advanced Placement exams. So it's kind of a percentage of both of those and obviously AP their college level courses. So that is a challenge for our teachers that are teaching those classes because of the rigor that's involved, but also obviously for our students who not only have to do well in the course, but have to do well on the exam at the end of the year on those AP classes. So congratulations to our high school, those students and their parents for encouraging those students to take those challenging classes at the high school and then do well on them during the Advanced place Placement exams I think most folks are familiar with. Back in the fall, the high school was named to the U.S.

Dr. Adam Spina [00:06:53]:
news World Report Best High Schools list. We've also found out recently that Williamson Middle School was named to the U.S. news World's Report Best Middle Schools list and Explore elementary was named to the same publications, Best elementary schools. So Discovery doesn't take some of the same state assessments, so it's hard to scale them in that same way based on the metrics that are looked at. But at this point in terms of publications, and every publications has its own metrics and its own system for evaluating schools. But all three schools ranked among the best according to U.S. news and World Report, based on their progress this year and last. So congratulations again to all involved with that accomplishment.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:07:29]:
So exciting to be able to see and to be recognized in this way. And I love being able to celebrate these awards with all of the district and the teachers and the students. So thank you for sharing that. And as we're recording this, it is very cold outside. The wind has been blowing and snow is on the ground. And I know we always get a lot of questions this time time of year about snow days, cold weather days, kind of process and what that all means and maybe giving me a little bit of a sense of kind of what goes into those decisions and what goes into how all of this gets shared out for our community members to better understand.

Dr. Adam Spina [00:08:08]:
So I think it's probably universal that most of our students and staff get very excited about the prospect of a potential snow day. Maybe with the exception of our maintenance team. Those are long days for those staff members. Superintendents tend to dread them. And I know parents are always very apprehensive because that's a very complicated early morning. Most cases, change of routine that families need to get figured out when. When school closes. As a general rule of thumb, I really want to have our schools open.

Dr. Adam Spina [00:08:36]:
There's a ton of things that we can provide students during the course of a day. In some cases, they only receive here, but for the most part, they're coming in, they're getting educated, they're getting breakfast, they're getting lunch. They're having great interactions with their friends and their teachers. And we want them here at school whenever possible. But one of the things that I really carefully evaluate on days where there is inclement weather are the conditions of the roads and temperatures, especially taking into account factors like students waiting out at a bus stop in the early morning and how cold that might be over a sustained period of time. And the fact that we have a lot of high school drivers. You know, I brought this up ad nauseam, but roughly 20% of our students don't live in Williamston. School of Choice is huge here, and that means a lot of kids coming from outside of the district boundaries into school, whether Their parents driving them or student drivers.

Dr. Adam Spina [00:09:25]:
And so evaluating road conditions and temperature are very important. And that often has to occur very early in the morning. And some tough decisions need to be made and sent out in a timely manner to give us families, give families as much time as possible to plan with the arrangements for their children. Because we understand that when the schools are closed, the vast majority of families in the district, they still need to go to work. The rest of the economy doesn't shut down because schools are closed. And so we need to get information out to parents as quickly as possible so they can make those arrangements for their children. But it is a very complicated process. In the morning.

Dr. Adam Spina [00:09:57]:
There's a lot of factors that go into it. Driving the roads very early in the morning, talking with other districts, talking with our director of facilities, seeing what the maintenance staff is able to do in terms of snow removal in some cases and salting. Can our buses navigate the roads, given the amount of snowfall and what's the plot, what's the status of roads being plowed, especially side roads, country roads? So there's a lot of different considerations that go into play. This morning, for example, was super cold out and we wanted to make sure the bus is all turned over in the morning because of, obviously the bus doesn't start. That's going to be a huge issue. So a lot of different factors that play into that decision. And I understand there's always folks that on certain days wish we were closed and other days wish we were open. We do the best we can with the information that we have, trying to make the most informed decision.

Dr. Adam Spina [00:10:42]:
But at the top of the list is keeping our students safe. One thing I also want to bring up in terms of how snow days work at a state level, we call them snow days because they're most often associated with snow and snow causing school to be closed for the reasons I mentioned already. But technically they're forgiven days, and we get six of those a year that we don't have to make up. So after those six days have expired, we technically then need to make up that time, whether it's the number of days or the number of instructional hours or both, that we've lost at some other point during the course of the year. Now, you can apply to the Michigan Department of Education for a waiver to get up to three more days. We've done that, I think, once or twice during my time as superintendent, but that's not a for sure thing. So it's better if you can help it and the weather cooperates. Obviously, to not exceed your six forgiven days.

Dr. Adam Spina [00:11:26]:
That's not a factor when deciding if school's going to be closed. If it needs to be closed for safety reasons, we'll close. But I think sometimes there's this thought that there's unlimited days and you can have, you know, 12, 13, 14 snow days in the course of a year. And you can, but that time will need to get made up at some other point. And so that's kind of the opportunity cost, so to speak, for having a lot of days closed because of weather or power outages or whatever situations might occur during the course of a school year.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:55]:
Well, Adam, thank you so much for sharing this, for giving us a update on all of the things happening. And I know that we'll have more of these opportunities in the future to be able to delve a little bit more into what's happening with the bond and other things that are happening within the district. So I appreciate your time today. And as always, I encourage you to reach out if you have any questions about our district, reach out to our central office, ask questions, feel free to, to communicate and to talk to us about concerns or questions that you have. You know, the only way that we can make sure that your questions are answered are if you ask the questions. So this is one method and one way that we try to inform you. But I also encourage you to take the time to continue to communicate and communicate well with our district and come right to the source when you have questions that need to be answered. All in all, we'll be back again in the near future.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:49]:
Thanks so much for being here today and we wish you all the best.