Group offers skills, and friendship, to local students with disabilities

Emma Dodici never wanted to miss school on Mondays.

She was enrolled in the Career Skills at Cornellprogram for students with intellectual disabilities at Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga Board of Cooperative Educational Services (TST-BOCES), and she spent Monday mornings with a group of Cornell students who were her friends.

"If we had something going on on Mondays, she'd say: 'No, that's when we go to Cornell,'" said Beverly Dodici, Emma's mother. "Having neurotypical peers who made her feel like she was a part of the community - it really built her confidence and self-esteem."

Emma, who has Down syndrome, graduated from TST-BOCES last year and is living independently at Otsego Academy in Edmeston, New York. The Cornell students who befriended her are members of the TST-BOCES Career Skills Club, a student-run group supported by the Einhorn Center for Community Engagement. The club works with TST-BOCES students with intellectual disabilities, such as Down syndrome or autism, to develop communication and life skills, and a sense of curiosity and confidence, that help them as they transition out of school.

The program is part of a larger relationship between the TST-BOCES work readinessprogram and Cornell. The BOCES students spend Friday mornings with students and staff from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and three mornings a week working various jobs at the Statler Hotel. For their time, the BOCES students, all aged 16 to 22, receive credit toward their Career Development and Occupational Studies credential, which recognizes a student's ability to enter the workforce.

"It's imperative that we think about the futures for these students, because many of them are going to be on a different path," said Helen Staller, a special education teacher at TST-BOCES. "If we can get them set before they're done with high school, if we can make some of those connections and put that image of the future in their minds, then we can build that bridge - that's why the class the Cornell students run on Mondays is so important."

The Cornell students said the group is a source of growth for all involved.

"It's very reciprocal," said Isabelle Erskine '25, president of the club and a human development major in the College of Human Ecology. "We're learning as much from them as we're giving to them."

"We become friends with the students as much as they become friends with us," said Kathryn Erich '26, the club's public relations chair and a student in the ILR School. "This community helps me realize what's actually important. It also makes me feel like I'm having an impact beyond Cornell's campus."

Forming a family

At 9 a.m. every Monday, five to 10 Cornell students and six to eight TST-BOCES students gather to practice basic interactions and skills - shaking hands, interviewing, filling out job applications, using a computer, writing and especially conversing. A recent session on how to balance a budget evolved into discussions of where students like to eat and shop, whether they thought food or housing was more important, and where they'd like to go on vacation.

The group also visits sites on campus to stoke curiosity. They've been to the Liberty Hyde Bailey Conservatory Greenhouse, the Fuertes Observatory, the Lindseth Climbing Center, the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source and other places, and have guest visits and lectures from Cornell faculty.

The preparation has helped students find employment - sometimes at Cornell - and gain exposure to new places and people.

"We've had selective mutes who have opened up to the college students and been able to hold a conversation. We've had autistic students who have learned how to interact appropriately," said Karen Bennett, a special education teacher at TST-BOCES. "We have a lot of students who say they're anxious that they're not going to be able to do something, like practice for an interview, but then they surprise even themselves."

Beverly Dodici said she could see the progress in Emma's communication at home.

"Neurotypical peers really know how to engage her and sustain a conversation, and especially in our culture, language is really used as a way to informally measure someone's ability, and so when she's not able to communicate, people feel she's not as capable as she is," she said. "The socialization skills, the practice the students gave her, really helped her hold conversations and be fully herself."

Bennett said the fact that all the students - BOCES and Cornell - are around the same age allows them to find common ground and makes the Cornell students powerful role models and teachers.

"Our students are seeing people who aren't from BOCES, who are their age, who have goals and are focused but also admit to having weaknesses," Bennett said. "They give our students an idea that there is something past high school, and it gets them thinking about what they will do, too."

Nikolai Huie, a TST-BOCES student with Down syndrome who participated in the program last year, said the group helped him gain independence and more. "They were family," he said.

Gaining perspective

The Cornell students said they get just as much from their interactions with the BOCES students. Erich recalled a BOCES student dropping everything to give a peer a hug when the peer became frustrated with an activity. For Erich, it was exactly the kind of interaction that pulled her out of her own anxieties.

"It was just such a good reminder that at the end of the day, it's not always about how you're doing on an assignment or what job you get but just taking the human aspect back into everything and genuinely caring," Erich said. "I feel like this population is more in tune with that, and I learn from them about how to be more caring in my own life."

Erskine agreed and said the club is not just something to put on a resume - that it requires her to be present for the TST-BOCES students who are relying on her. "Leaving this club as I graduate is one of the saddest things I'll have to do," she said.

Erskine's twin sister has an intellectual disability and attends a school in New Jersey, so for her the group's mission also has a personal meaning.

"I know that feeling - of just wanting them to be included and feel safe, and I think we do an awesome job of making the students feel important," she said. "My sister always wanted to go to college, it means a lot in society, and there really isn't any reason why someone like my sister couldn't continue their education or find a job. But they need support, and they need more opportunities."

And Staller confirmed that, when given the opportunity, the BOCES students rise to the occasion.

"We start off in September with a group of students that might be a little anxious to be doing these things off BOCES' campus with different groups," she said, "and the growth - socially, emotionally - is huge. The Cornell students that come and work with our students are so amazingly awesome, just really good people who can relate to the kids - and we're grateful."