If you’ve ever seen Mona Shores High School Principal Jennifer Bustard with students, you’ve seen her beaming smile and what looks like the personification of joy. Since she’s in her 19th year in the role, you might wonder if her contagious enthusiasm is real. I asked – though jokingly, because I suspected it was.
“Is it real? Yes, of course it is,” she said. “You know, I think it goes back to your ‘why’ of why you became a teacher, first and foremost, right? … At the end of the day, you’re taking care of kids with love and enthusiasm, and you’re taking care of the people who take care of the kids. So, yeah, it’s real.”
She said the power of belief and getting kids to do things they think they can’t do, or teachers to do things they don’t think they can do, is enthusiasm.
“You’ve got to tell them, ‘Yeah, you can do this. Just believe in it.’ So that’s just who I’ve always been as an athlete, as a student myself, and I just know that the power of belief – you have to come at it with enthusiasm.”
Walking into the school, Jennifer said she thinks about who she can support that day.
“I open that door, going, ‘OK, see the kids. See the kids. See the staff. See the staff. Fill their bucket. Fill their bucket,’” she said. “Because what teachers do is incredibly challenging, as you know. And then you know what kids are enduring and working through and aspiring to do, it’s just, I don’t know … You just got to go at it with energy.”
Starting college as a three-sport athlete at Grand Valley on the basketball, volleyball and track teams in the ‘80s, she really did it all. Her sophomore year she gave up volleyball. She coached after graduating, through her teaching and early administrative career. Jennifer only stopped once she became a principal.
Her career took her to Illinois and back to Michigan, teaching in rural, suburban and urban schools. She’s been an educator of all grades, as a high school biology instructor and as an elementary and middle school PE teacher, and put in years as a dean of students, athletic director and assistant principal. Those varied experiences give her perspective.
“You know, one of the most important things I have to do is make sure that kids have the experiences that they deserve, and that teachers are up for the challenges that are ever evolving, and you know we have a motto: Get 1% better every day, and if you do that, you’re going to be 365% better at the end of the year, right?” Jennifer said. “And you have to learn, you have to grow, and I have to make sure I’m keeping up with the current trends, and then fitting those current trends with ‘What does our community need? What does our community believe in? What’s worth investing in?’”
When she first started at Mona Shores, it had a history of high performance in academics, but she said they had something to work on, and a lot of it stemmed around culture and behaviors. Investing in programming like MTSS, PBIS and Ride with Pride – a community supported program that results in a single student receiving a car at the end of the year – it flipped their culture starting in 2012, and she said it re-energized the staff and it helped her and the team understand why people behave the way they do.
Starting as an AP in 2007 and having to help figure out where to cut $2.5 million every year for a while, and helping her staff and students through the COVID-19 pandemic were the two biggest challenges of her career, she said. But with the inspiration provided to her by previous Mona Shores High School principals and support from staff and the community, the high school has seen great changes while maintaining a school size of around 1,250 students.
“You know, when I first was principal, we had 12 AP classes. Now we have 23. We used to have 10 CTE programs. Now we have 17,” Jennifer said, “just growing those programs based on what our kids need. Our Ride with Pride program is huge – it kind of parallels our PBIS. We have the kids sign that they pledge to positive behaviors in our school and out in the community, we partner with our Norton Shores PD, and we give a car away at the end of the school year.”
Jennifer said that if you ever want to get fired up, go to the Sailor Pride Assembly at the end of the year.
“It’s unbelievable,” she said. “I have schools come all the time to come watch it because it’s just like, how do you do this? Well, we got the community involved. We have kids involved. We have parents involved. It’s part of our school leadership team. So it’s really the foundation, if you will, of all of the work in our building.”
As only the fifth principal in Mona Shores history Jennifer’s never dreamt of being at central office – she said she wants to stay close to the kids. If that keeps her smiling, it’s the right thing to do.
