It’s not often you get to spend a lunch break belting out the lyrics to your favorite song while friends cheer you on, though the world would certainly be a brighter place if that were true. Then again, for students at Kalkaska Middle School (KMS), it actually is, thanks to Shyenne Stapleton, who started hosting monthly karaoke breaks at the start of the 2025 school year.

“It may seem silly to some,” says Stapleton, but as the KMS site coordinator for Communities in Schools Northwest Michigan, she sees it as a simple way to help the middle schoolers let loose while building confidence—both in themselves and in the support around them—and to remind the students that they’re capable of doing hard things “in and out of the classroom.”

Which pretty nicely sums up the overarching mission of Communities in Schools, or CIS, a national organization founded in the late 1970s to champion kids through (and to) graduation, an accomplishment that research hails as a strong predictor of adult success. Today, CIS works in more than 3,500 schools nationwide, 13 of which are right here in northern Michigan, led by Northwest Michigan chapter Executive Director Amy Burk.

Read more about CIS and its work across the region in this week's Northern Express, sister publication of The Ticker. The Northern Express is available to read online, or pick up a free copy on newsstands at more than 650 locations in 13 counties across northern Michigan.