Allegan Area ESA educators honored for supporting student success

Years before Alayna Krueger worked for Allegan Area Educational Service Agency, her family needed its help.

Her oldest daughter received Early On services while experiencing sensory struggles and medical issues. Krueger remembers how much it meant to have people helping her family navigate what came next.

“We felt so supported and loved and equipped to handle what was next for our daughter,” Krueger says.

Now an Early On social worker, Krueger provides that same support to other families. Her work recently earned her an Outstanding People for Education award, along with two Allegan Area ESA colleagues: Director of Safety and Security Troy Woodwyk and Transition Services Specialist Tina Kocefas.

The three have different jobs, but they share the same goal: helping students and families succeed. Their work reaches people from early childhood through young adulthood. They support families of children with disabilities, help make schools safer, and prepare students for jobs and life after school.

‘Mountain-moving’ moments

Krueger says progress can show up in moments that might seem small to others.

She remembers a mother of a child with a disability telling her about a moment that showed how far she had come.

“For the first time I said my kid’s disabled, and it didn’t put me in tears,” Krueger recalls the mother saying. “I was proud of it because I don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”

Krueger knew how much work had gone into reaching that point.

“Those little moments, they’re not little,” she says. “It might seem minuscule to other people, but it is mountain-moving in that child and family’s life.”

That kind of support is what initially drew Krueger to the job.

About two months after her youngest daughter was born, her mother spotted an opening for an Early On social worker and sent it to her.

“You need to apply for this,” Krueger remembers her mother telling her.

She did, drawn partly by her family’s own experience with the program.

Now finishing her fourth school year, Krueger says families remain at the center of why she does the work.

“One of my favorite things about working here is that we do take the whole child approach,” she says. Because Allegan Area ESA serves people from birth through age 26, Krueger says the agency looks beyond what happens academically.

“We’re really looking at how do we support that family, how do we support the child, not just academically,” says Krueger, who created a playgroup uniting families of young children with disabilities for connection, inclusion, and support.

Keeping students and staff safe

Woodwyk’s work focuses on creating an environment where students feel safe enough to learn.

The retired Kent County sheriff’s deputy has served as Allegan Area ESA’s director of safety and security for about two years. His work includes emergency planning, physical security, transportation safety and staff training.

Last year, he organized a training day of hands-on emergency drills for 100 Allegan County bus drivers, giving them practical tools and confidence to respond to real-life school transportation emergencies.

“My No. 1 goal and mission here is to keep our students and staff safe,” Woodwyk says.

One initiative being implemented for the coming school year is de-escalation training for bus drivers. The goal is to give drivers practical techniques for handling difficult situations involving students, parents, visitors, or others they might encounter along their routes.

Woodwyk says serious incidents aren’t common.

“We don’t have that many issues with it,” he says. “It’s just kind of more than anything a reminder to our bus drivers, just some techniques and skills that they can kind of keep in the back of their head.”

Woodwyk connects that preparation directly to learning.

“We want students to be able to come to a safe environment,” he says. “It’s hard for students sometimes to go to a learning environment where they don’t feel safe.”

He sees safety as a shared responsibility. Allegan Area ESA doesn’t have the large security team that might be found in some urban school systems. Instead, Woodwyk works with administrators, transportation staff, custodians, maintenance workers, and others across the agency.

“There’s really a safety culture across the ESA that we’re all in it together,” Woodwyk says. “It’s not just a one-person show here.”

Growth beyond the classroom

Kocefas’ work has centered on helping students with disabilities recognize abilities that aren’t always measured in a classroom.

Before recently moving into her new role as transition services specialist, Kocefas ran the work experience program at Allegan Area ESA’s Transition Center.

When she arrived, work experiences were available on a smaller scale. Kocefas developed them into a schoolwide program, and she estimates about 75% of students eventually participated in work sites.

She says many students arrived at the Transition Center after spending years in high school where they didn’t always feel successful compared with classmates following traditional academic paths.

“Many of them did not feel successful or feel a sense of worth,” Kocefas says.

Work experiences can change how they see themselves.

“Going out to work is the most amazing experience for them because they feel like they have a purpose,” she says. “They feel like they are able to do something really well.”

She sees that change in the way students talk about themselves.

“They’re so proud to be able to say, ‘I’m going out to work. I’m going to work,'” Kocefas says, “and to feel like they are contributing something and doing something important.”

Kocefas’ new position allows her to build on that experience by working with special education high school teachers on individualized education programs, community supports, and work-based learning while helping students transition to life after school.

“I love being able to be a part of an experience that they have that’s not necessarily academic, but life-changing,” she says, “a life experience that will really shape what they do when they’re done with their education through the school system.”

Surprised by honor

While their work is different, Krueger, Woodwyk and Kocefas have something else in common: None expected to receive the recognition.

Woodwyk says he was surprised to be nominated alongside colleagues whose work he admires.

When Superintendent Bill Brown later came to his office to tell him he had received the award, Woodwyk was “completely shocked.”

“A complete humbling experience,” he says.

Krueger immediately wondered who had nominated her. Although she wasn’t given the names, she believes at least one nomination may have come from a family she worked with through Early On.

“To know that other people see that and feel that and have value in the work that I’m doing with the families, it’s very humbling and makes me emotional,” she says. “Because it’s not always that easy.”

Kocefas says she tends to notice what she hasn’t accomplished rather than what she has done.

“I spend so much time doubting myself and seeing the things that I didn’t get to, and seeing how much more there is that I want to be doing,” she says. “Those are the things that I focus on. And I know a lot of us do that.”

The award gave her a chance to see her work from another perspective.

“It is nice to know that, OK, I am doing OK,” Kocefas says.

The recognition points back to the people each of them serves.

Krueger might see that impact in a parent beginning to talk about a child’s disability with greater confidence. Woodwyk sees it in students being able to focus on learning because school feels safe. Kocefas sees it in young adults discovering that their abilities have value beyond the classroom.

“They feel like they have a purpose,” Kocefas says. “They feel like they are able to do something really well.”

Photos courtesy of Allegan Area ESA