By Jason Wesseldyk
Sports Editor
For the past several years, Otsego Public Schools has served as host to a county-wide autism program.
However, that will change at the conclusion of the current school year.
Due to a space crunch faced by OPS, Level 3 autistic students will receive services at their home district beginning with the 2025-26 school year.
Allegan Area Educational Service Agency superintendent Bill Brown stressed that, despite the location of services changing, the quality of service will remain high.
“The Allegan Area ESA remains committed to supporting students, families, and staff throughout this transition to ensure all students receive the services they need in an inclusive and supportive environment,” said Brown. “The location of these services is what’s changing, not the quality of service.”
Allegan AESA runs the Level 3 program, which currently includes 17 students split between two elementary classrooms and one middle school classroom.
A rise in enrollment at OPS meant the district needed to repurpose the classrooms currently being used for the Level 3 program. Other districts in the county were contacted to gauge interest in becoming the new home for the program, but none were able to do so.
“No other constituent districts have the space to host the program, which is the reason OPS can no longer host,” Brown said. “It is a space issue.”
The teachers who work in the Level 3 program will be reassigned to districts throughout the county based on student need.
“They will be serving as coaches to help build the capacity of the teachers back in the local districts to support the students and meet their needs,” Brown said.
The Level 3 students will continue to receive the services they need based on their individualized education program (IEP).
“Students need these services based upon the IEP, and their services will still be provided,” Brown said. “We’re meeting the needs of the students, just in a different way.”
Level 3 autistic students are considered to be on the highest end of the autism spectrum.
According to the organization The Place for Children with Autism, Level 3 autistic children have “severe challenges in social communication as well as extremely inflexible behavior. Children with Level 3 autism will be nonverbal or have the use of only a few words of intelligible speech.”
