Beginning immediately in January 1942, Bird began correspondence with colleagues and government officials, attempting to establish "a proper centralizing of authority and approach" to facilitate the relocation of students to colleges outside the military zones on the West Coast. Throughout spring and early summer of 1942, letters from Bird's office reached various individuals and organizations: To presidents of colleges in the interior inquiring whether they would accept Japanese American students; to colleagues at the Western College Association and leaders at Christian education groups attempting to coordinate student relocation efforts already engaged by various organizations. 

In April 1942, the State Department held the Conference of Advisors of Foreign Students in Cleveland, where educators presented the relocation of students to schools outside the restricted zones as a possible solution to the predicament facing displaced students. On May 5, 1942, Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy asked Clarence Pickett of the American Friends Service Committee to undertake, with other organizations, an extensive program of student relocation. 

On May 29, 1942, individuals representing the government, institutions of higher education, the Japanese American Citizens League, and other organizations gathered in Chicago to form the National Student Relocation Council (renamed the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council in March, 1943).