When Emily McIntire was a student teacher for Nora Sutherland eight years ago, she jokingly asked the since-retired Yelm High School special education teacher if she could have the program she started.
The program is the SITE House, which stands for Supporting Independence Through Employment, and it helps special-needs students find employment and find independence after high school. Sutherland was the mastermind of the program, and McIntire fell in love with it and lovingly pestered her to hand over the keys once she was ready.
After Sutherland retired at the end of the 2023-24 school year, she called McIntire and told her she was ready to hand the keys over to her.
“Obviously I still had to apply and everything, but I was eager to interview because I already had experienced the program firsthand and fell in love with it eight years ago,” McIntire said.
McIntire, who also works as a special education teacher at YHS and head coach of YHS Unified Sports, is in her first year as the teacher for the SITE House, which is located on the corner of Tahoma Boulevard and Tornado Alley. She helps students with 15 job sites at the house, which include custodial jobs such as cleaning bathrooms, dusting, vacuuming, dishes, laundry, and cooking.
Students, aged 18 to 22, also have numerous volunteer opportunities in the community. Students go to Wilcox Farms, Worthy Coffee Co., Tim’s Pharmacy, A Novel Bookstore, Rent-A-Center, McKenna Kennels, Yelm Farm and Pet, Grocery Outlet, and more.
Upon moving on from the SITE House program, students have landed jobs around the community. Jonah McKale works at Grocery Outlet, Cizo Perez-Murray works at Mill Pond Elementary School as a paraeducator, and Damon Heard-Shackelford is employed at Farrelli’s Pizza.
“The goal is employment. By their final year, I should be able to say, ‘Good job, you’ve done it.’ If we haven’t found the right spot, at least for a continued volunteer position, I feel like I didn’t do my job,” McIntire said.
McIntire describes the SITE House as an opportunity for the young adults to transition out of being students. With that, she said her role essentially evolves from teacher to colleague, although she said many of them still call her Mrs. McIntire.
“That relationship shifts halfway through their first year, or after I’ve told them 100 times, ‘You’re now just a worker with me. I’m working, and you’re working,’” she said.
Each day, the adults in the program have duties within the house and in the community, and they receive “payment” as reward for their work. At the end of the day, McIntire and her assistants recap the work day and highlight who worked the hardest and went above and beyond their duties. One person is nominated “Employee of the Payroll” by their peers and receives a bonus in their biweekly pay.
McIntire also helps them prepare for real-life problems, including financial concerns and social and emotional troubles. She works with them to discover what kinds of work they like to do and what they don’t in what she calls “interest inventories.”
“All students have to go through the first entry-level jobs, which tend to be more custodial and breaking down boxes to see what their skill level is. The students take those interest inventories about what they think they’d be interested in,” McIntire said.
Sutherland created an annual event called a reunion barbecue that brings back students and staff who have come through the program to catch up on their careers and lives over hot dogs and watermelon.
“We get their address and their phone number and we send them an invitation to come back and have a barbecue. There are students from 20 years ago who still come and do the barbecue every year,” McIntire said.
In the future, McIntire hopes to utilize the property grounds to create a program-run greenhouse for their personal use.
Shannon Powell, YCS Office of Student Support director, said his favorite part of overseeing the SITE House is to watch the students “welcome up” from the high school to the program and find their independence. He praised McIntire for her work in preparing them for what adulthood has to offer.
“Emily does a really nice job of supporting them and getting them ready for their own apartment or their own independent lifestyle. For me, that growth has been really fulfilling.”
