Peer Learning Exchange: School Calming Spaces

This Peer Learning Exchange will provide an opportunity to learn about how schools can create and use calming rooms and classroom corners to support students’' well-being and readiness to learn. Calming spaces can be integrated as part of a school’s comprehensive strategy to provide nurturing environments that foster positive student development and prevent harmful and persistent distress, thereby also improving school climate.

Laura Buckner will share lessons she gleaned from research and interviews with California school staff in developing a 2022 brief, Calming Spaces in Schools and Classrooms. Kim Bradley, Tahoe Truckee Unified School District (TTUSD) Wellness Coordinator, will discuss how she developed school wellness centers that offer space and opportunity for students to regulate themselves, as well as connection to more robust supports and services.

Participants will then have time to interact with colleagues from across California to share and ask about the intentions and outcomes of, as well as the nuts and bolts of setting up and overseeing, such supportive spaces.