By: Rebecca Bartelme
Published: August 17, 2021
From: UPMatters.com
LAKE LINDEN, Mich. (WJMN) – “Born and raised, said Lake Linden-Hubbell Public Schools Superintendent Brad Codere. “Graduated from here in 1988.”
Codere has been working with Lake Linden–Hubbell Public Schools for 23 years. Recently, he completed his second school year as the district’s superintendent.
“I’ve taught in other places before as well but I always felt that if I was going to give back, I wanted to give back to the kids and the community where I grew up,” said Codere.
The school sits on the village’s main road and has gone through changes since its beginning.
“There was another building here,” said Codere. “A three-story school house that became too small for the community and when they decided on building on the high school in this location that caused a problem because the previous school was also in this location. They actually hired a person from Calumet who won a bid and moved the existing school with jack and rollers across front street here and down to the lake to be used while they built this building.”
It was grown even more since the high school building was built in 1916, including the elementary school being made in 1998 that connects to the high school via skywalk. Within the past 12 years, Codere says the community has supported the school by helping to pass bonds for improvements.
“In 2009 and again in 2016 and that involved many different phases and projects,” said Codere. “That got us a finished track out in our football field. We have new roofs put on both of our buildings. Improvements to our auditorium. We revamped the entire gymnasium here.”
A unique feature about the school is that they have a 400 acre school forest donated to them for the sole purpose of promoting and developing local educational facilities for present and future children of the district.
Codere says between successes inside and outside of the classroom, their students go off into the world with a bright future ahead of them.
“Just within the last two years, our Lake Linden–Hubbell Schools Foundation which is very active has been lucky enough to be given from former alumni and supporters of the school just like I said in the last two years over $3 million for scholarships,” said Codere. “This past year alone, we were fortunate enough to give our senior class which only had 32 students in it, but was able to award over $130,000 in scholarships.”
With about 380 students going into the K-12 district this upcoming school year, it’s a small community with a big heart.
“To me, the biggest thing is to continue to make it an atmosphere where kids feel safe, supported and enjoy their educational experience here and I think we have the staff to be able to do that,” said Codere.”
