Trinity Catholic School now has a “calming room” for students when they are stressed or need a quiet place to get away.
In November 2023, the school was awarded a $2,500 Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield grant to furnish a “Take Good Care Calming Room” on its campus. ABCBS gave out 75 grants to celebrate its 75th anniversary in Arkansas.
Trinity, serving students in sixth to eighth grade, was the only Catholic school in the state to receive the grant.
According to the organization’s press release, state records indicate more than 83,135 Arkansas students regularly deal with anxiety and depression, and a tranquil environment helps them to refocus and control their emotions.
With the funds, Trinity set up a comfortable room complete with sofas and upholstered chairs, soft lighting and books. Assistant principal Brandy Rinke said many schools have incorporated quiet places in or outside the classroom where students can calm themselves when they feel stressed.
“When I was a school librarian (at Woods Elementary School, Fort Smith) I had a calming corner in the library equipped with fidgets, coloring pages and other things to help them calm down,” she said. “Middle schoolers have a difficult time separating in the classroom, and the calming room allows them to relax and get away from whatever is stressing them.”
Prior to this year, students who needed to de-stress often sat on the couch in Rinke’s office to do their schoolwork, but the busyness of the adjacent school office made the situation less than ideal.
“Up here in the (second floor) calming room, we can turn off the overhead lights and put on a soft lamp,” she said. “Sometimes kids want to talk; sometimes they don’t. I’m not a counselor, but I have a good enough relationship with them that they can say, ‘I’ve had a rough day. I need some time to myself.’”
With only 218 students, Trinity is small enough that the staff know the students and are aware of who might need a calming room or a few minutes to themselves. Rinke plans to buy fragrance diffusers to enhance the relaxed atmosphere.
Teachers can also use the calming room to tutor students or read test questions to students who need them to be read aloud.
“I would like to have it open during the day as a resource where kids can come when they can,” Rinke said.
The Book Club is small enough to meet in the Calming Room. Trinity has a half-hour study hall for the entire student body between seventh and eighth period, and clubs such as chess, robotics, Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Pure Heart Girls meet during study hall.
“We have so many sports teams in fall and spring that setting up an activity/study hall period allows us to offer other extracurricular activities,” Rinke said.
The calming room is just one part of Trinity’s expansion. In April 2018, the school bought the entire 110,000-square-foot facility from the Benedictine Sisters of St. Scholastica Monastery. Previously, the school leased the west wing of the building while the sisters used the east wing for a retreat center.
The school has renovated the first floor of the east wing for a band room, choir room and a football locker room. This year, in addition to the calming room, they are building three classrooms in the former dormitory on the second floor for a STEM center with technology, science and math facilities. An additional room is being equipped for teacher professional development.
“This is such a neat building with so much history and so much room to grow,” Rinke said. “We want to grow, but not too much, so as to remain focused on our mission.”
Teachers have found the calming room to be a wonderful resource.
“One of the challenges students face daily is that they are bombarded by school and teacher expectations, peer pressure and even their own expectations,” said Spanish teacher Elizabeth Johnson. “Calming rooms can help students identify and label their feelings, as well as take a moment for implementing self-regulating and mindfulness strategies to help them prepare to enter back into the hustle and bustle of the regular school environment.”