To provide exceptional educational, behavioral, therapeutic and vocational programs to individuals with special needs, to give them the necessary skills to learn to work and live successfully with dignity and independence.
Our Vision
A life of dignity and self-worth.
our core value
01
INITIATIVE: We demonstrate leadership and self-direction in accomplishing our goals.
02
DIGNITY: We respect the dignity and difference of all individuals and treat everyone with respect under all circumstances.
03
EXCELLENCE: We strive to maintain the highest standards of integrity and performance at all levels within the organization.
04
ACCOUNTABILITY: We are personally accountable and responsible for our behavior and our results.
05
SERVICE: We are passionate about meeting the needs of our clients, employees, community and society and are committed to ensuring quality service.
our history
1980
1989
1991
1992
1995
1999
2002
2003
2005
2009
2009
2009
2010
2017
2019
1980
7 classrooms served 49 students in Phoenix.
1989
Served 134 students on behalf of 23 school districts.
1991
Established special needs preschool services.
1992
Public school consortium program, 2 classrooms at Murphy Elementary School.
1995
Established an East Valley site in Tempe.
1999
Served 145 students on behalf of 24 school districts.
2002
Established innovative Adult Services in Phoenix.
2003
Moved Metro Campus to its current Phoenix site.
2005
Changed agency name to ACCEL (Arizona Centers for Comprehensive Education and Life-skills).
2009
Established BISTA Autism Center in Phoenix.
2009
Accredited by National Commission for the Accreditation of Special Education Services (NCASES) Accreditation. ACCEL remains the only agency in Arizona to have acquired this accreditation.
2009
Served 260 students on behalf of 33 school districts, 42 adults and approximately 15 children ages 2 through 16 in the BISTA Autism Clinic.
2010
Established ACCEL Buckeye Learning Center satellite school program.
2017
Established Tonopah school and adult services programs.
2019
Served 475 students in Arizona and Saudi Arabia, 110 adults and 40 children in the BISTA program. Established Ajyal Center for Comprehensive Education and Life-skills (ACCEL INTERNATIONAL).
MEET AJYAL CENTER STAFF
Raymond Damm has been working with ACCEL since March of 2016, starting as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Development Officer, and transitioning to the role of Chief Executive Officer in June of 2018.Ray holds a B.S. from The University of Virginia – Wise and an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business. Having held executive positions in both the public and private sectors, Ray is driven to apply private sector best practices to sustainably address issues the public sector is driven to solve. More..
Originally an English teacher in Utah and Arizona (Mesa Junior High School), Gordon and his family moved to Washington State where he served in administration for three high schools, ultimately becoming the principal of Richland High School.While principal, Gordon served on the board of directors for Goodwill Industries of Columbia where he then became the CEO. After his time at Goodwill, Gordon founded and operated a software development company with global sales and was also elected to the local school board. More..
Phillip Tanner, Ph.D., NCSP is the Executive Center Director at the Ajyal Center for Comprehensive Education and Life Skills (ACCEL International). With excellent support from our skilled colleagues in Arizona and our outstanding partners at Aramco, Dr. Tanner lead the team through the establishment of the Ajyal Center in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia in September of 2019. He continues to be astounded by the excellence of the staff within the center and is delighted about the culture of continuous growth and More..
Ezaldeen has been employed at ACCEL International in the early stages of its foundation aboard as a business development consultant and administrator. Having worked mostly in the areas of Business Management, Training & Development and Project Management for more than 12 years in various international corporations, he is very familiar with Performance Management, Learning and Development Skills. Ezaldeen is particularly experienced in the areas of strategic advice to operational and More..
Mohammed is an experienced Finance Manager with 13 years of experience in many fields such industrial, service, health, and contracting. He is experienced in developing and improving accounting and finance systems, finance analysis, strategic planning, financial budgeting, cost Controlling, Sensitivity analysis, auditing, treasury accounting, and financial reporting. Mohammed has a bachelor’s degree, CMA certificate, strategic planning certificate, in More..
Sana Mahdi has been working with international schools in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia since 2009. She received her degree in Information Systems from Sana’a University in Yemen. Sana started supporting small schools to develop and become bigger in Riyadh. By defining the schools’ vision, mission and strategies. She organized and managed many special events and activities representing the schools. . Sana is experienced in developing and improving of schools’ marketing plans and managing media and public relations. More..
Naif has been working with Human Resources since 2016. He received his bachelor’s degree in management information systems from Yanbu University College in Royal Commission of Jubail and Yanbu. Naif is experienced in enforcing the labor law and to maintain the order in the organization. In addition, Naif certified in ERP Integrated Business Process with SAP. Naif began working with ACCEL in 2019 as a Human Resource Coordinator.
Sultan Alamri joined ACCEL as School Manager & Government Affairs. He has great educational and administrative experience in private and international schools in developing disability programs and services.
He worked as a project manager on four university campuses with more than 200 staff members and more than 1000 students at Umm Al Qura University, Saudi Arabia for three years.
He also worked as a lecturer at the department of special educat. More..
Sultan Alamri
Male School Principal and Government Affairs Manager
Batool completed her Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology as her major area of specialization. Later she completed her Doctoral research in the Educational and Counselling Psychology-Human Development program from McGill University, Canada. Her research focuses on inclusive education emphasizing Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a core instructional design model. Specifically. More..
Asma Batool
Director of Inclusive Education and Transition Services
Erica Nicol has been working with children and adults with developmental disabilities since 2014. She received her degree in Special Education and Rehabilitation from the University of Arizona in Tucson. Erica began working at ACCEL in 2014 as a Special Education Teacher, then moved into the Mentor Teacher role supporting students and staff members at various ACCEL campuses across Arizona. Erica and her husband, who is also a special education teacher, moved to Saudi More..
Jeffrey Nicol is a special education teacher who is passionate about helping students achieve and grow to their full potential. Jeffrey received a Master of Education in Special Education from Arizona State University in 2012. He began his teaching career at ACCEL in Arizona in 2013. Since then he has taught in a variety of special education classrooms for 7 years in the private. More..
Mr. Nick” – as his students call him – grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and then attended Arizona State University for his undergraduate degree. After working with a few adults and children with special needs in their homes, and then providing applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy in a clinical setting, Mr. Nick attended St. Cloud State University to complete his Board Certified Assistant Behavior More..
Chris is a Clinical Director who addresses the assessed needs of individuals with illnesses, disabling conditions, or both. He seeks to improve or maintain an individual’s physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and spiritual function to enable full participation in life. Chris believes that every person is entitled to pursue the life they want to lead regardless of differences and is entitled to dignity and respect under all circumstances. He has successfully demonstrated the ability to develop, implement, More..
Dena Hafiz received her B.S from the University of Massachusetts as a Sociology Major. Her academic interest is in the field of Medical Anthropology with a focus on cognitive and physical disabilities in children. She has a passion for creating opportunities for young adults with developmental disabilities acquire meaningful vocational skills to carry throughout their lives. This has led her to establish programs in the United States and Saudi Arabia More..
During our first semester, we did not have English placement; however, we are in the process of creating classes for English placement for future semesters. At this time, if we have enough students who need English placement, we will create a class for them.
The tuition rates depend on the specific identified needs of our students. It will be very important to bring any previous medical, developmental or other evaluation reports to the screening to assist the team in making these decisions.