COOR ISD and Children's Assessment Center report service increases, new support dog

Superintendent Shawn Petri told the Crawford County Board of Commissioners that COOR Intermediate School District serves over 7,000 students across six school districts and two public academies and provides instructional services, special education, early childhood programming and career and technical education.

Petri said the ISD also provides professional learning for roughly 500 teachers, administrators and staff and acts as a liaison with local and state agencies. The presentation was given during the board's Dec. 18 meeting in Grayling.

Rebecca Yunker, executive director of the Northern Michigan Children's Assessment Center, said the center provided 47 forensic interviews, 263 family advocacy sessions, 121 mental-health sessions and 4 non-acute medicals to Crawford County residents during 2024-25. "There was a 12% increase in services from the previous year, with Crawford County being 57% higher than the state average," Yunker said. She also reported on the center's building campaign and construction and introduced a new support dog: "She is currently training and doing great."

The two presentations gave commissioners a snapshot of education and child-protection services in the county and laid groundwork for any department requests that could appear in future budgets or grant applications.

The presentations were part of the board's regular agenda and were not the subject of votes; commissioners accepted the reports for their files and moved on to other agenda items.