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Quincey Epley

Jared Snyder brushes his teeth before starting his day at the Transition House. Students at the house practice hygiene skills at the beginning of every day.

“My classroom is not a classroom; my classroom is a home,” said special education teacher Amy McBeain. The Transition House is a program operated out of an actual house for North Platte High School special education students until they turn 21. It helps students with independent living skills, and also allows them to get jobs in the community. “My classroom is not a classroom; my classroom is a home,” said special education teacher Amy McBeain. The Transition House is a program operated out of an actual house for North Platte High School special education students until they turn 21. It helps students with independent living skills, and also allows them to get jobs in the community.

Nebraska is considered a birth to age 21 state for special education. This allows special needs kids to get assistance from the time they are born until they turn 21 years old, and is why the North Platte Public School District is able to provide services such as the Transition House to special education students. “The goal really is to help them to work towards living as independently as possible, as independently as they have the ability to,” McBeain said.

For students at the Transition House, they have a daily routine unlike other students. They start the day at NPHS and then go to the house, where they do things like read over the newspaper and practice hygiene skills. They also do chores, and plan and prepare their own meals. After lunch, the students go to their assigned job site where they work until the end of the school day. Some of these job sites include, but are not limited to, places like Wild Bills, Gary’s Superfoods, Sports Shoppe, and Perkins. “They really enjoy going to work. They really feel like they are serving a purpose,” McBeain said. “A lot of them talk about needing a job for next year.” Transition House students work two different jobs a school year. In the fall, they work at one place and after Christmas, they pick somewhere new.

Another part of their morning routine follows a curriculum called Unique Learning. “A lot of it has to do with student ability,” McBeain said. After placing the student at a certain level in the program, they are able to work on a variety of skills. “They can work on different skills from banking and money management, cooking, community involvement, job skills, interviewing [etc.],” McBeain said. Each month the curriculum goals change. Last month, Transition House students were learning skills based around manners, and this month they’re focusing on engaging in the community. “We’ll do a lot more with community involvement, like how to access the community, how to be safe in the community, [and] what to do in case of an emergency,” McBeain said.

The Transition House has adopted a new motto this year which relates to their Unique Learning curriculum, “All means all.” This motto is important to the special education department as they want to ensure that all of their students feel important and able. “It doesn’t matter what the child’s disability is, what matters is that we want to make sure that we are giving every student the opportunity and the best opportunity,” said McBeain. “We want the students to feel that they belong with the rest of their peers. We want their parents to see that they are just the same, and they can do the same things as their peers [too].”

“Across the country, there is not very many schools that have a program like this so we are very fortunate to not only have a program, but to have a district that is supportive and who wants to keep this program alive and to keep the house,” McBeain said. “We are one of few, if not the only.”