Revere High School made changes to the location and use of the calm room for the benefit of its students.
Many schools have begun implementing calm rooms in their buildings. Calm rooms serve many benefits and can help students get through difficult times. Revere’s calm room is being changed, which, according to the counselor’s, will help it better aid students.
A calm room is a place where students can come if they are struggling with an issue and need to “re-group,” to prepare for the rest of the day. Bonnie Simonelli is Revere’s at-risk coordinator. She speaks of the need for a calm room in the school.
“[It is a place] for students to come when they [are] having a hard time, that [are] maybe having an anxiety going on, or a hard day, something going on at home,” Simonelli said.
The calm room is a place students can go when they are having trouble focusing in class or have something outside of school happening that they need to talk about.
“They just really came to school and pushed themselves to get here, but had a hard time being in class and concentrating,” Simonelli said.
The design of the high school included a space for a calm room. Now it looks more like an office, or a “sit-up.” This change is so that students do not use the room as a place to spend large amounts of time, but rather use it as a space for a brief break before returning to their studies.
“They call it a ‘break room’ now. So that’s downstairs down by the principles, it’s not so comfortable. It’s more of a sit-up, but [it’s there] if you do need to get out there and take that time or break,” Simonelli said.
Simonelli explains that initially, the calm room was very helpful to students. Then students began using it to spend large sums of time.
“[The calm room] was very beneficial. I think knowing that it was here was a relief to some students that they had a place. However, the turn it took was that it got to be where some students were up here for hours,” Simonelli said.
This change in location will also bring the space closer to the clinic. School nurse Cheyenne Christy explains how this can be helpful for students with specific health conditions that may cause them to need the calm room.
“If somebody is having an anxiety attack or a panic attack, there are breathing techniques that you can do to calm them down … There are [also] techniques you can do to get their mind off [the issue],” Christy said.
Bringing the calm room downstairs opens up more space in the guidance office. This allows Simonelli and the school’s psychologist, Ashley Ostowski, to work more closely to the counselors, Nicholas Depompei and Emily Rion.
“So now with it being the way it is, we have more support here in this office,” Depompei said.
It is important to remember that being in the calm room, or break room, does not ensure that the problem will be resolved, however, just talking about an issue can lessen its emotional toll.
“[You] can’t fix it sometimes, but you can listen,” Simonelli said.
