Eighteen-year-old Tyler Miranda started off a recent conversation within the life skills transition classroom at East Providence High School with the caveat that he’s not great at talking to new people, and that his social skills in general have not always been the best.

But if he didn’t say it, then you’d never know it. The jovial young man makes direct eye contact when speaking, and within 5 minutes he has enthusiastically shared some of his favorite hobbies, which include video games like most teenagers, but most importantly to this story — drawing.

“I’ve always liked art since I was little. I just remember I drew a lot. I have one of my oldest drawings taped onto my wall,” he said. “I do painting, but not as often. I do sketches where I draw with a pencil, ones where I draw with colored pencil, and then I'll do digital versions of drawings. I sketch it out in the digital form as well.”

As a member of the East Providence High School life skills transition program, Tyler is one of about 10 special education students in the class who have attained graduating age but, due to a variety of cognitive or developmental conditions, require more assistance getting to a place where they are ready to move on and begin their adult life outside of school.

Special ed students can begin gaining some additional experience outside of their educational curriculum through the life transition coursework at age 14, learning foundational skills through activities like working at the school store or performing various clerical roles to assist the office staff.

At this point in the process, the more important function of the program is to get kids better acquainted with themselves.

“Some of the successes I’ve seen even in the short time we’ve been together is starting to understand who they are as people,” said Cassandra Johns, who teaches the younger cohort of the life transition program. “Yes it’s about jobs, vocation, functional skills, but knowing you are a person and have your own interests and that you’re a member of a community…We want you to be employed and happy and successful. And that will then lead to be able to more deeply go and explore careers. And everyone’s independence looks different.”

Once they move up to the 18+ program, they begin going on outings multiple times a week for a few hours each day to various local businesses to get a taste for different potential job opportunities.

“I have kids going out every day of the week or at least 3 out of 5 days a week to get them as much experience as they can,” said Kim Ricard, who teaches the older cohort, which ranges in age from 18 to 22. “When they get to the time they will be exiting my program, they will have had a great deal of experience.”

State law requires students in these programs to acquire 60 cumulative hours within the same interest area before exiting. While Ricard mentioned that the school has multiple partnerships, including Target, Walmart, Burlington Coat Factory, the East Providence Recreation Center, Senior Center, and Anchor Bay Assisted Living Facility, they would love to find more businesses located closer to the school that provide an array of work opportunities for the kids.

Ideally, the program seeks to link students up with somewhere they can not only put in the requisite hours and make a paycheck, but fit in and find fulfillment through their work.

“The struggle that comes into play is when we’re trying to find some kind of a work-based trial experience that is somewhat in line with the interests of the particular student,” Ricard said. “We can do the Walmarts and the Targets until the cows come home, but trying to find something more in line with the students’ interests is the challenging piece.”

Tyler’s great adventure

The story of Tyler Miranda perfectly encapsulates the best case scenario for the life skills transition program.

Seeing his interest in drawing and making art, Ricard reached out to a local East Providence business called (add)ventures, which provides a full suite of brand management and marketing services for use by everything from small businesses all the way up to blue chip companies like CVS and Stop & Shop.

The company — which has been around for 35 years with offices in Miami, Chicago, and New York, and opened up on their new headquarters in 2019 at 20 Risho Ave. in East Providence — had participated in the program a year prior as part of their company-wide commitment to community involvement and charitable endeavors that they call “(add)love”. They were excited to participate again when hearing about Tyler.

“We learned a little bit about him, but as we've gotten to know him, we’re thoroughly enjoying this opportunity,” said Erin Norman, VP of Production and Implementation for (add)ventures. “Tyler's very creative, very enthusiastic, and he has been really gaining some great valuable hands-on experience.”

While he could be initially shy with meeting new people, since he began back in September heading to (add)ventures on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he has jumped headfirst into each chance offered to him to work with various members of their team, including initiating meetings with people to learn from them.

“He has worked with different illustrators on our team,” Norman said. “He's really interested in novel writing so he's been learning about character development and been working on a personal novel of his with one particular content writer, which has been great. He's even gained some skills working with our IT team and learning how to manage his computer.”

His shining moment, so far, was when the opportunity arose to design masks for the creative team for one of their regular meetings, which happened to fall on Halloween.

“He came up with this idea that people could customize their masks and he made this whole document all on his own without any input from us,” said Autumn Laskowski, a senior designer who has helped mentor Tyler. “He got really excited about it and wanted people to come up with their own names for their characters too. So he just brought this energy and excitement to it that people really enjoyed.”

Norman said that Tyler was scheduled to be with them through the second week of January, but said that could be open to discussion if he needs more time.

“He’s welcome to stay a bit longer if he needs to get those 60 hours,” she said. “We hope this experience will benefit him and his future and and any different career endeavors that might come his way.”

When asked about the experience, and whether he was hopeful he might one day land a job in graphic design — maybe even for (add)ventures one day — Tyler didn’t hesitate with an answer.

“Hopefully,” he said. “It feels like I’m in my element.”

Raising the ceiling for the differently-abled

When chatting with those who help coordinate and instruct the life skills transition program, it becomes quickly apparent that this is not just a nice idea for finding creative ways to get students in special education involved in activities, but rather a movement towards shifting the societal expectations for what people with cognitive and developmental disabilities are capable of doing.

“Businesses don’t always know the abilities that are underneath the external facade they may have. There’s abilities under there,” Ricard said. “There’s always going to be that stigma that because they have that intellectual disability, that they can’t. But what they ‘can’t’ is a very open-ended question…They have those abilities, but unfortunately if they’re not given that chance to shine and show those abilities, they’re never going to be able to show them. We all have our own challenges, but we excel in certain ways, and that’s because somebody gave us a chance.”

For Leslie Anderson, Director of Pupil Personnel Services for EPHS, it’s all about opening up the community to these kids, and giving them a place to belong.

“That whole idea of breaking down barriers. Everyone has something to contribute,” she said. “There’s probably some misunderstanding or reluctance, even among families, to think that ‘My kid can’t work 40 hours a week.’ Well, that’s not necessarily what the end goal will be. Maybe it’s a kid who will work 10 hours, or 6 hours a week, but really it’s about contributing back to the community and feeling part of the community.”

And in general, Anderson said she was grateful that throughout the years, the societal expectations and opportunities for students like Tyler have been getting progressively better.

“I think we’ve learned now that there is no ceiling,” she said. “Whereas in the past, it was pushed down upon them.”

Have a work opportunity to offer?

If you own or work in a small or larger business in the East Providence area and are interested in potentially working with EPHS to host students from the life skills transition program, reach out to Dalila Raposo at 401-435-7806 (x6631), or email lifeskills@epschoolsri.com.

The program comes with the requisite insurance, and students are always accompanied by a job training coach to ensure they have the proper oversight.