Denise Pranger

“Our Klatt Elementary Believe Room will be accessible to all students teaching mindfulness and self-regulation. Classes will schedule a thirty-minute visit once a week to the Believe Room. During this time, the teachers will incorporate the district’s SEL lessons that promote mindfulness and self-regulation into the setting of the Believe Room. Upon entering the Believe Room, students will immediately feel the care and understanding the school, staff, and teachers have for them. Students will recognize this care and understanding in the Believe Room by the inviting and calming appearance, the positive posters, warm lighting, peaceful music, the fish bubble tube, bounce balls, sensory boards and mats, alternative seating, and SEL-focused books. We are very excited for the opportunity to create an evidence-based program to provide our students with a room filled with sensory items, alternative seating, relatable books, calming music, art of Alaskan culture, soothing room colors, along with an emotionally safe place for our students that will help students achieve our SEL standards. Currently, Klatt Elementary places an emphasis on SEL through morning meetings and SEL daily lessons, but our students deserve to experience a place where they will learn to believe in themselves. The implementation of staff training, the messages from the special speakers, and the activities around the new materials purchased for the room will give students experiences to balance their emotions, feel proud of their heritage, learn to express themselves in socially healthy ways, and to learn to believe in themselves.”