There is a new YATP building under construction near Liberty Middle School. In a recent interview, Dr. Tammy Voisin, director of PLCS special education services, shared more information about the building, designed to meet the needs of students in the Young Adult Transition Program.
The YATP program is not new in any regard. It has been around for more than 25 years. The program was first located in a strip mall storefront area right off Highway 370. The space was rented, so not a lot of changes could be made. They couldn’t tear down walls to expand space, and necessary security updates were very difficult to implement. Approximately two years ago, the YATP program was moved to Liberty Middle School, where it remains today until the new building can be fully set up.
The key contributors in bringing this building to life have been Dr. Heather Post, the principal of the YATP program, and Kaylee Ayala, the supervisor of related service providers.
“So those two people really have been the key contributors in just kind of designing the building, picking out all of the colors, kind of the spaces. Those types of things,” Dr. Voisin said.
With the growth of the district, and the fact that every individual student in the YATP program is around the ages of 18-21, the program needed more space to contain all of the students. If there were more students than the capacity of the building, some students had to be sent to different agencies.
“They’re not little you know, preschoolers or kindergarteners. So we were just running out of space,” Dr. Voisin said.
Discussions for a new building had started around five years ago, because the space issue had become apparent.
“The early goals were to make sure we had adequate space, not only for right now, but for 15 years from now, when we’re as big as we’re going to get as a district,” Dr. Voisin said.
The students entering this new building will be coming from the two high schools, Papillion La Vista High School, and Papillion La Vista South High School. There will also be some students coming back from other agencies, if they couldn’t be sent to the current YATP location. Transportation is handled by the district van fleet at the disposal of the special education services. There are about nine vans at the current moment, and there will be more.
To ensure that the facility was the best it possibly could be, there was something the staff liked to call “stakeholder input” where parents, students, and teaching staff were all asked what they would like to see in the new YATP building.
“So you talk to lots and lots of different groups, and you kind of dream big. That’s how you start. You say, if we could do anything we wanted to do, we had all the money in the world, and we do anything we want to do, what would you want to do? And then we narrowed it down from there,” Dr. Voisin said.
There were three main ideas that came from the stakeholder input, according to Voisin. Those were:
- “They wanted space to be able to practice daily living skills – so we will have a mock apartment where students feel like they are living in the space. So they can cook, clean, make their bed, do laundry and put it away, etc.”
- “They wanted space for gross motor activities – we couldn’t put in a full gym, so they have a big commons space that will allow for movement like yoga or physical exercise.”
- “They wanted a dedicated lunch area – so we are using that commons space for that as well – and will have a serving location where staff will serve the food.”
The reason the construction of this building was possible is because of a municipal bond. A municipal bond is a debt security issued by a local government to finance public projects or services. The specific bond, Bond Issue 2023, was approved by voters and included a plethora of PLCS projects including the construction of the new YATP building on land already owned by the district. In essence, it was the voters of Papillon who really allowed this to happen, and in the words of Dr. Voisin: “Thank you for voting this for our kids.”
