What do we do?

Lighthouse Education Center provides a positive learning environment, enabling students to achieve and enhance self-confidence, self-esteem, independence, social acceptance, intellectual and personal growth according to their Individualized Educational Program and Transitional Service Plan.

Our Building

Lighthouse Education Center is a center based special education facility designed to provide programs and related services to meet the education requirements of severely emotionally impaired and autistic impaired students. (Lighthouse Education Center, in addition the educational services provided by core curriculum instructors, offers the services of a technology/computer teacher and an autism consultant.) The center emphasizes positive reinforcement, personal responsibility, appropriate decision making skills and the development of socially acceptable behavior.

Weekly, students evaluate their personal goals and review their individual progress in learning to accept responsibility for their behavior, actions and the resulting consequences. It is the ultimate goal of the program at Lighthouse Education Center to help students develop the skills necessary to return to their local school program.

Placement is initiated through the local districts via the Individualized Education Program (IEP) process, when it is determined by the IEP team that the student’s educational needs and related service requirements cannot be adequately provided for within the residential school district.
All teachers and ancillary staff  have approval in special education with appropriate certification.
Classrooms are staffed with paraprofessionals aligning to the MARSE requirements and Berrien RESA District Plan

We are here for YOU!

• We provide special education programs and related services for students with Severe Emotional Impairments and Autism Spectrum Disorder.
• We provide educational programming to students in grade levels K-12 to meet the grade level content expectations.
• We provide instruction through the Life Centered Education Curriculum to students who are on the Certificate of completion path.
• We provide Community-based Instruction for students in both the high school diploma bound program as well as the certificate of completion program.
• We provide Support to local districts by BCBA personnel as well as transitional personnel for students transitioning back to local district
  

Contact Information

Sex Education Review

As part of the Michigan's Revised School Code, Berrien RESA has made the choice to teach students about health and sex education each school year.  By doing this, we must follow rules outlined by the State which include a Health and Sex Education Advisory Board that must meet every two years for the purpose of updating and approving materials and adjust plans surrounding the law, practices, data and implementation of health and sex education.  

While Berrien RESA had plans of beginning this review in April 2020, with the unforeseen cancellation of in-person instruction due to COVID-19 that started March 16, 2020 and goes through the remainder of the school year, Berrien RESA cannot complete all the requirements and allow equal access to all communities members during this time.  Because of this, the review will go past the two-year time frame and will be completed during the first part of the 2020-2021 school year. 

Nondiscrimination Clause/Title IX

It is the policy of the Berrien Regional Education Service Agency not to discriminate in its policies and practices with respect to compensation, terms, or conditions of employment because of an individual's race, color, religion, sex, national origin, height, weight, marital status, political belief, genetic information, disability or handicap which does not impair an individual's ability to perform adequately in that individual's particular position or activity.

Lynda Hurlow
Executive Director of Human Resources
Berrien RESA 
711 St. Joseph Avenue
Berrien Springs, MI 49103

For procedural information, please review our NEOLA Board Policy No. 2260.

Resources

Announcements:

All off-site ASD programs will follow the local school district calendars.