By Harold C. Ford
The bid by the Beecher Community School District (BCSD) to retain current students and draw new enrollees reached a milestone moment in January with the reopening of two newly remodeled classrooms at the south end of what locals have long called the “Old Building” of the district’s former high school campus.
The two new classrooms with remodeled interiors, new furniture, and state-of-the-art technology house 10th grade students who have been bused over, on a daily basis, from the current Beecher High School (BHS) campus’s Dolan Building less than two miles away.
According to the school district’s “In Touch” publication, “The two classrooms have been intentionally designed to prepare students for college and careers.”
One classroom “mirrors a college instructional environment,” the publication stated, as it features new tables, carpeting, an interactive white board, and access to Chromebooks. A second classroom “includes collaborative learning spaces and specialized equipment commonly found in hospitals and healthcare facilities.”
BCSD leadership expects to fully reopen a newly-christened Beecher High School as a health science academy in the fall of 2026.
At the moment, the Old Building and environs – at the northwest corner of Saginaw St. and Coldwater Road on Flint’s near north side – are largely occupied by a crew of construction workers engaged in the near-complete makeover of the building that first opened its doors to students in 1926.
‘It’s amazing,” said Marvin Smoot, Beecher Board of Education president, during an interview with East Village Magazine (EVM). “That’s always been a vision to reopen that high school.”
“I walked those hallways,” recalled an emotional Smoot, himself a 1983 BHS graduate. “When I got on the board, I knew it [a Beecher rebirth] had to start in the educational system.”
The Old Building was completely shuttered in 2004 for financial reasons, as were two others at the five-building campus. For 22 years, Beecher’s senior high school students have attended classes at the Dolan Building along with 7th and 8th graders. Until now.
Beecher plans to return all 10th-12th graders to the new facility by September 8, 2026. “That’s the target date if no construction issues happen,” Smoot said. The district’s Dolan Building will then serve students in grades six through eight, while Dailey Elementary, across the street from Dolan, will enroll K-5 students.
“Catastrophic damage” to “shiny new object”
The south end of the so-called Old Building where the two renovated classrooms have reopened was completely destroyed by the horrific 1953 tornado that roared through the district, killing 116 people – 113 in Beecher – and injuring more than 800 others.
The Beecher tornado was the deadliest in Michigan’s history and one of the ten worst in American history in terms of fatalities caused by a single-funneled twister. It registered as an F-5 storm on the Fujita scale, its highest rating, which indicates “catastrophic damage” caused by wind speeds ranging from 261-318 miles per hour.
The storm left a path of destruction that stretched for 186 miles. Property damage was estimated to be $19 million in 1953 – about $237 million in today’s dollars when adjusted for inflation.
Nonetheless, the Beecher community, with help from others, set about the task of rebuilding. An army of 5,000 community volunteers donated an estimated 80,000 hours to help with the rebuild, including Charles Stewart Mott, then-CEO of the foundation that bears his name.
The rebuild attracted the attention of the National Civic League, which honored Beecher with its prestigious All-American City award in 1966.
In 2026, the school district is on the precipice of reoccupying its Old Building that is morphing, according to Jendayi Gardner, BCSD Superintendent, into “a shiny new object.”
“When parents see a new building and other amenities, it might move parents to want to send their children to that school district,” Gardner added. “The high school is the cornerstone of your district.”
Mott pitches in $10 million
Decades after that devastating tornado, Charles Stewart Mott is again assisting Beecher in a rebuild. Flint’s largest foundation announced on its website in January 2025 that it was providing $10 million to support Beecher Community School District’s work to reopen the shuttered school.
Gardner and BCSD Director for Business Services Michelle Woodley confirmed the financial package undergirding the restoration project.
The package includes, in addition to the grant from the Mott Foundation: $5 million from a State of Michigan Budget Allocation; $2 million from a Housing and Urban Development Community Project Funding Grant; $1.5 million from a Michigan Department of Education Grant; and $500,000 from a Michigan Enhancement Grant.
The renovation project was jumpstarted by Matthew Rizik, a Flint area native, Powers Catholic High School graduate, and current officer at the Detroit-based Rocket Companies founded by Dan Gilbert.
Rizik’s attention had been drawn to Beecher by an online competition BCSD entered to upgrade its locker rooms – and the district’s overall impressive history of athletic excellence. (Beecher’s 25 state team championships are exceeded in Genesee County by only Powers Catholic and Flint Northern.)
“What they [Beecher] accomplished with the resources they have is amazing,” Rizik told Detroit-based WDIV during a visit to the Beecher campus in February 2025.
“He [Rizik] saw something in Beecher,” said Smoot. “He did a walk-through …he went out on a limb … he said, ‘we can do this.’”
New programming
Smoot lauded the revamped curriculum that will accompany the renovated building, citing offerings in health and science. “It’s going to give kids the opportunity to see if this is what I want to do for a career,” he said.
Former BCSD Superintendent Richard Klee told EVM in October 2024 that, “work-based learning” would be available during students’ junior and senior years with on-the-job experience at nearby health facilities. “Our goal is to provide students with hands-on learning experiences, industry certifications, and pathways to both higher education and immediate employment,” he said.
“They’ll leave high school with some sort of certification that will provide a foot in the door to employment and a possible career,” Smoot told EVM more recently.
“You can’t teach like we used to teach 40 years ago, or even 20 years ago,” Smoot added. “If you make education fun in today’s society, kids will want to learn.”
Jonathon Edison’s golden tickets
But to further encourage learning and good behavior beyond a fun teaching approach, there’s Jonathon Edison, a former Detroit Public Schools teacher and administrator.
Edison studied neuroscience at Harvard, and now as Beecher’s “9 Pathways of Success” Administrator, the district is using the “golden ticket” approach to motivating school children that evolved from Edison’s research.
Edison described the approach to EVM as an “evidence-based, cognitive-behavior therapy, neuroscience, emotion-driven program.”
Students of psychology will likely see the behavioral science of Ivan Pavlov (classical conditioning) or B. F. Skinner (operant conditioning) as underpinning Edison’s golden ticket approach. In each, desired behavior is paired with a reward.
So, desired behaviors at Beecher schools – good attendance, volunteerism, satisfactory grades, solid citizenship – can earn students golden tickets. Regular, random drawings of golden tickets result in rewards, and the more tickets earned, the better the chance of being rewarded.
Rewards have ranged from food, clothes, books, and a shopping spree at a local market all the way up to Detroit Pistons tickets, a $2,000 college scholarship, and a chance at snatching cash in a windy “money machine.”
Edison told EVM that misbehavior infractions are down 70% since implementation of the “golden ticket” program.
“We are shifting mindsets in students,” said Superintendent Gardner. “We have students running to school, not only for golden tickets, but also … for learning.”
Gardner said she was well aware of Beecher’s reputation as a “district of champions for athletics,” but she added, “we are shifting that perception to be the district of champions for academics.”
In 2024-25, Beecher was removed from the state’s “Priority Schools” list, or the list where underperforming schools find themselves based primarily on student academic achievement levels and graduation rates.
“No longer under state oversight,” Gardner proudly reflected, “that’s a watershed moment. The sky is the limit for Beecher.”
Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in East Village Magazine’s June 2026 issue.
