Stronger Together: The Sonoran Center and Baboquivari Unified School District Collaborate for Students’ Success
When the Sonoran Center for Excellence in Disabilities enters into a partnership with another organization, we strive to ensure that everything is done in the spirit of collaboration. Rather than imposing our own ideas of what works, we keep communication open at every opportunity, so that our partners can best inform us of what they need and we can work towards a solution together.
It’s with this goal in mind that the Sonoran Center and Baboquivari High School have been working together for the last several years. Baboquivari HS is in the Tohono O'odham Nation, southwest of Tucson. Nerissa Birdsell is the Special Education teacher and Transition specialist at Baboquivari. She has been an integral part in the Sonoran Center’s efforts at the school.
The Sonoran Center and Baboquivari HS’ collaborations began in 2018, when Birdsell noticed that while different organizations offer resources for students with disabilities, the communication and networking between them could be improved.
“I remember in graduate school I did a study here in the [Tohono O'odham] Nation, and what I found out in my study is that inter-agency collaboration is a big weakness within the transition program here,” Birdsell said. “So that’s what I focus on - looking at different agencies and making sure we are in contact regularly. I have this action plan that I created, and one of those is inter-agency collaboration. Sonoran Center is one of those agencies that I put in my plan, so I started collaborating with them. We’ve been in touch with the Sonoran Center since I became the transition specialist.”
One of the Sonoran Center’s programs that has been very successful at Baboquivari is the Transition Ahead Roundtable. The Transition Ahead Roundtable (or TAR for short) is a multi-day workshop where one student works with their parents, educators, disability specialists, and peer mentors to develop a personalized action plan for their time after high school. Whether that means going to college or entering the workforce, the TAR can help them find the path that leads where they want to go.
“The Transition Ahead Roundtable is person-centered planning,” Birdsell explained. “In the beginning, we’ll invite a student and their family to participate in an all-day meeting. Then they invite different agencies to talk to students and parents at separate times. Then finding out interests of the student as far as careers or otherwise. At the end of the day the student will present to the group. It’s almost like a student-led IEP. They present and facilitate their own meeting. By the end of the day they’re blossoming. They can speak. They can share.”
The Sonoran Center also collaborates with Baboquivari via the Center’s Work-Based Learning program as part of pre-Employment Transition Services. The program helps students get hands-on experience with employment before they graduate, giving them a head start.
Birdsell recalled a success story she witnessed with one of her students in the Work-Based Learning program.
“This was a child with so many challenges when she participated in work based learning, but I challenged her too. She’s very hard working, very methodical. I never noticed that she was interested in technology until she participated in work-based learning. She likes computers, she likes designing, all those kinds of things. She started out with work-based learning at the Sonoran Center. When she graduated we hooked her up with a work-adjustment program with Vocational Rehabilitation. She was there, and I volunteered to be her supervisor so there could be a smooth transition. Then she received the Youth Transition Award in Arizona's Seventeenth Annual Transition Conference in September 2022
Birdsell and the Center are working hard to invest in the community at Baboquivari, to pave the way for the next generation.
“We are a close family, so we’re trying to look for opportunities for them here within the community. And there’s a list of jobs you can find, but the requirements are so high. For students who have disabilities, they may need additional support with that,” Birdsell said. “I have many kids at different levels of abilities, and I know they can do things! Because I’ve seen it, I’ve seen students when they volunteer, I’ve seen the kind of work that they do and the quality of work that they do. If there’s a business here that I can work with to get them the job, I’ll do that.”
Her vision for the future of the program: Each student who goes through the program will have a job available for them by the time they graduate.
“When they graduate, we train them here, and there should be a job that’s available and before they even graduate they start processing an application at the jobs they want to do. That’s the vision that I have for this program. That's what we’re trying to do right now, to find a way that Sonoran Center can help us in that area. Because we are an educational institution, we educate, we teach, but jobs aren’t part of it. That is another area now that we’re trying to incorporate and integrate into our system. So we have education and employment together as part of the transition program we have. Hopefully that will materialize and we’ll see improvement in the next 3 years or so. ”
It’s a big vision, but Birdsell is confident that it can come true with the hard work of dedicated people: school staff, the Sonoran Center and other organizations, and of course the students themselves.
“I think it’s possible. I really envision that kids will be able to (do it). But it has to be structured. You can’t just say ‘This is my vision’. Yes, but what are the steps to get there? It’s the same way with transition. If kids want to work before they even graduate, we already fill out applications so that when they graduate they know there’s something they can do right away.”
The Sonoran Center looks forward to a long and fruitful partnership with Baboquivari that will continue to contribute to the success of students.
“I’m really thankful on behalf of our district. Really thankful for the Sonoran Center and our great partnership,” Birdsell said. “You have a really great director who is reaching out to different populations, especially in rural areas. I think oftentimes that’s overlooked, but for us to get a lot of support - you guys reaching out to us and finding out what we need, that’s really heartwarming for us.”