More calming spaces: ACPS announces four new 'wellness rooms' for students

Lillian Lawson, Gainesville Sun
·2 min read

Alachua County Public Schools will unveil new wellness rooms, or calm rooms, at four more schools this month.

The wellness rooms, funded through a grant from UnitedHealthCare (UHC), are designed to serve as a space for students to calm down when they are experiencing emotions such as anger and frustration during the school day.

New calm rooms at Rawlings Elementary, Metcalfe Elementary, Hawthorne Middle/High and Howard Bishop Middle will open Monday. They will have low stimulation décor, special lighting, resting spaces and other calming features.

The newly created calm room at Shell Elementary in Hawthorne, Florida, which serves as a space for students to decompress.
The newly created calm room at Shell Elementary in Hawthorne, Florida, which serves as a space for students to decompress.

One of the first: Even students need a place to decompress. This middle school's calm room has that covered

Funding to furnish and equip the rooms comes from a $52,500 grant from UHC. The grant is also being used to support the district's efforts in helping students learn to self-regulate their emotions and better cope with stress through the use of a system developed by BrainTree Wellbeing.

ACPS has opened wellness rooms at Shell Elementary (funded through the UHC grant) and Santa Fe High (funded through a Health Promotion and Wellness Coalition grant).

Other initiatives: $500K grant initiative to help Alachua County students build 'social and emotional skills'

Another calm room, funded through a different program, was built at Fort Clarke Middle in August 2023. Fort Clarke was chosen for one of 20 school calm rooms funded with a grant from the Cook Center for Human Connection, a national nonprofit focused on mental health and suicide prevention, and was also the first and only awardee in Florida.

Children and visitors explore the new calm room at Fort Clarke Middle School in Gainesville, Florida on August 8, 2023.
Children and visitors explore the new calm room at Fort Clarke Middle School in Gainesville, Florida on August 8, 2023.

The Cook Center describes calm rooms as supportive and therapeutic environments where students can focus on calming themselves and learn to self-regulate their feelings and bodies, according to Alachua County Public Schools.

There are mental health resources for parents and families at parentguidance.org, a free website that Alachua County schools has implemented this year. The website offers video courses by licensed therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists for parents to know more about their child’s behavior, as well as resources for parents’ mental health.

Virtual family coaching is also offered by the district, where a live coach will work with parents for 30 minutes a week for extra support with difficult situations. Additionally, the district will be holding monthly mental health webinars for families to engage in mental health topics.

Each school will host a reveal of the new calm rooms for students and staff. A ribbon-cutting will take place at 9:30 a.m. Monday at Rawlings, 3500 NE 15th St., Gainesville, and student classes will explore the space through 1:30 p.m.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Alachua County Schools unveils more decompression spaces for students