Walking into the doors of The Kalamazoo Regional Service Agency’s (KRESA) service center is like being welcomed by a family. Laughter echoes throughout the building as well as sounds of people in meetings tackling the big issues in the community.

KRESA has helped students all over by providing abundant educational services to students, their families and school districts.

According to The Kalamazoo Regional Service Agency website, KRESA offers opportunities for students like Career and Technical Education (CTE), Career Awareness and Exploration, Deaf/Hard of Hearing Programs and Services, Early/Middle College and Education for the Arts (EFA) classes.

“We specialize in things that are slightly different from what our local districts do,” said Mindy Miller, Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Programs and Services at KRESA.

One of KRESA’s main goals is to improve the quality of special education programs in Kalamazoo and the surrounding districts. KRESA provides aid to students with significant emotional impairments. According to Miller, around 70% of KRESA comprises special education services.

“We have programs that are designed specifically around them [students with disabilities] and prioritizing their needs,” said Miller.

Miller is very supportive of Career and Technical Education (CTE) and Education for the Arts (EFA) which are both offered by KRESA for students in the Kalamazoo area.

 CTE’s and EFAs are off or on-campus classes that are offered to students to help them advance in their careers and allow them to explore careers they may be interested in.

“I am a huge proponent for students figuring out what motivates them and what drives them, and doing that at a time in their lives that doesn’t cost them that much money,” said Miller.

Miller expressed that helping students start to pave a path to their future is one of the goals of CTE’s and EFA’s.

“Career exploration is, I think, a super important thing,” Miller said. “CTE or EFE is just a beautiful opportunity for students to maybe figure out what they like but also maybe figure out what they don’t like.”

Junior Nadia Moore said that the health science CTE has been a great opportunity for her. 

“I’ve learned more about physiology and biology and learned about different health careers and discovering what I wanted to go into,” said Moore.

Moore appreciates the opportunities KRESA has given to students in the community to go on job shadows and observes professional doing their job at a workplace.

Moore said job shadowing allows students the chance to experience the field they want to go into, as well as the chance to gain unexpected skills from their classes.

“I’ve learned a lot about nursing; things like blood pressure, but surprisingly also good study methods that I didn’t know previously,” said Moore.

While Miller is based in KRESA’s Kalamazoo headquarters she also takes time to visit off-site locations.

“I actually just went [to the Health Science CTE] last week, and I was a patient for their final exam,” said Miller. “I had to go sit in their hospital ER kind of area. Then they took my blood pressure.”

Miller has worked at KRESA for 17 years and emphasizes how KRESA aims to lift individual districts and students and give them the support they need.

“We’re not here to tell people what to do or try to control them,” Miller said. “We’re really just here to partner with our local districts in the best interest of students and families.”