Michigan Teacher of the Year helps special ed students overcome hurdles

Erik Meerschaert, a special education teacher at Lake Orion High School, is the 2026-27 Michigan Teacher of the Year
Outside of the classroom, he helps special education students find social success by coaching united sports
He wants to spotlight other teachers’ successes in hopes of boosting Michigan’s teacher retention rates

When Erik Meerschaert was in second grade, he couldn’t read.

Thanks to the help of a special education teacher in his hometown of Troy, he was reading at grade level within 12 months.

Earlier this month, Meerschaert, now a special education teacher at Lake Orion High School, was named the 2026-27 Michigan Teacher of the Year.

Meerschaert’s second-grade teacher had a lifelong impact on him, and influenced his decision to become a special education teacher.

“That stuck with me, that there is a person who is willing to go that extra mile to give me the extra support that I needed to get to where I needed to be,” he told Bridge Michigan. “In the field of special education, that’s something that I get to do every day.”

Meerschaert began working in schools the summer after he graduated high school, first as a lunch aide in special education classrooms. When he enrolled at Western Michigan University, he began majoring in English secondary education. He liked the field, but didn’t feel pulled to it as he did the field of special education.

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“I remembered how much I loved being in the classrooms when I was being a lunch aide, and at that point I made the switch over to special education,” he said.

He has taught in special education classrooms for 17 years, the past seven years at Lake Orion.

Meerschaert’s classroom sizes are small: He teaches the same group of six students for most of the day. He is with most of those students for all four years of high school, giving him a bird’s-eye view of their progress.

“It really brings a sense of joy to me as their teacher, having spent four years with them, watching them grow,” he said.

A man works at a computer — Erik Meerschaert at work in his classroom. Outside of the classroom, he coaches football, basketball, and robotics teams. (Nate Miller/Bridge Michigan)

Graduation, Meerschaert said, is “monumental” for him as well as his students.

“When you’re able to watch them walk across the stage, it makes all the hard days worthwhile,” he said.

Helping students inside and outside the classroom

During his time at Lake Orion, Meerschaert has also served as a coach for unified sports, in which special education students play alongside general education students. Seven years ago, he started coaching Lake Orion’s first unified basketball team.

“When we started, our team consisted of eight total athletes and unified partners,” he said. “As of this last season, we are now north of 50 combined unified athletes and partners.”

Four years ago, he branched off to additionally coach unified robotics, and currently coaches girls’ varsity flag football, as well.

The highlight of the unified sports season happens when the unified basketball team plays a team from another school in the middle of the school day, so every Lake Orion student can attend.

“Being a part of that experience is truly amazing for so many of our athletes,” said Meerschaert. “That’s not something that they ever thought that they would get to be a part of, but playing in front of over 2,000 of your peers is a great feeling.”

]What makes coaching especially satisfying for Meerschaert is the knowledge that he is opening doors for his students to have experiences that were important to him when he was in high school.

“Some of my biggest memories were on the different teams and sporting events that I was a part of,” he said. “Before unified sports, that’s not something that a lot of our students got to experience.”

Meerschaert said the social aspect of unified sports programs has been important to his students.

Special education students who wouldn’t previously have interacted with many of their peers “now are sitting with them at a lunch table, and they’re going up to them, and they’re talking in the hallways,” he said.

Platforming other teachers’ success

As Michigan’s Teacher of the Year, Meerschaert will hold a non-voting seat at the State Board of Education each month, where he hopes to address Michigan’s low rates of teacher retention.

As Bridge has previously reported, Michigan is churning through teachers at an unsustainable rate. Vacancy rates are almost twice as high in special education classrooms.

To Meerschaert, much of that happens because teachers can struggle to see the impact they are having in the classroom. Spotlighting their accomplishments may help them realize how important they are, and encourage them to continue teaching.

“I really want to find ways to to display and champion the great thing that our teachers are doing here in Michigan,” he said. “So much of what we face at times can be hard, and when times are hard and times are tough, being able to focus and rely on those positives and those strengths is a great thing.”

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