Sarah A. Reed Kids’s Heart Case Research

Trendy, versatile classroom furnishings instills delight and helps enhance pupil outcomes at Sarah A. Reed Kids’s Heart

Equipping lecture rooms and different faculty areas with comfy and versatile furnishings doesn’t simply open up new prospects for instruction. It could actually additionally enhance the engagement and morale of each college students and workers.

With the assistance of grant funding, the St. Ann’s Faculty campus of Sarah A. Reed Kids’s Heart (SRCC) in Erie, Pennsylvania, furnished 9 lecture rooms, a school lounge, a board room, a number of places of work, and a library house. Trendy new furnishings was supplied by Faculty Specialty® for the scholars in its sanctuary-based studying packages, a lot of whom have skilled some type of trauma of their lives.

“These are children who’re going by way of some fairly huge challenges,” says Gary Bukowski, CRFE, affiliate vice chairman of improvement for the middle. “They’re used to having hand-me-down belongings.”

The brand new furnishings consists of ergonomically designed and age-appropriate desks and chairs that may be moved across the room simply to assist varied studying actions, in addition to interactive whiteboards, corkboards, and tables with markerboard tops that college students can write on.

The transformation of the middle’s studying areas has enabled lecturers to develop into extra inventive with their instruction by supporting extra lively and fascinating studying methods. It has additionally raised the morale of scholars by instilling a robust sense of delight.

“Having this furnishings has added a dimension of respect amongst college students and has helped them to be ok with themselves,” Bukowski says. “The scholars know we’re critical about making an attempt to make a distinction of their lives.”

Reworking School rooms

Sarah A. Reed Kids’s Heart operates two full-time academic packages for the Erie Metropolis Faculty District.

SELF, which stands for Sanctuary Schooling for Studying Fundamentals, is a program for college kids in grades 3-8 who battle of their typical faculty setting and who profit from smaller class sizes in a therapeutic, supportive studying surroundings. SBLP, or Sanctuary Based mostly Studying Program, is for particular training college students in grades Okay-12.

College students in these packages be taught core curriculum content material, in addition to social-emotional studying and coping expertise—they usually have entry to remedy companies as properly. Generally, college students are referred to those packages by the college district, and the period of their placement varies. Along with absolutely licensed lecturers, this system consists of scientific workers skilled in Ukeru and Secure Disaster Administration practices.

Previous to the transformation of its studying areas, the middle was utilizing previous furnishings recycled from lecture rooms on the district’s different colleges. This meant that many college students weren’t utilizing age-appropriate desks and chairs.

Throughout the 2022-23 faculty 12 months, the middle secured grant funding from varied sources—together with the Henry A. and Mary J. MacDonald Household Basis— to refurnish its St. Ann’s Faculty campus.

Faculty Specialty supplied the brand new furnishings in spring 2023. Bukowski positioned the order in March, and the furnishings was put in and able to use by the tip of April. “Faculty Specialty has been nice to work with,” Bukowski notes.

Supporting Higher Studying Outcomes

The brand new furnishings makes the middle’s lecture rooms extra versatile, which helps educators train far more successfully.

“The lecture rooms within the Sanctuary Based mostly Studying Program home college students of various grades and educational talents,” says Scientific Teacher Elizabeth Brown. “Due to this, my classroom wants to have the ability to flex and alter to suit the surroundings at any given second.”

With the brand new furnishings, Brown is ready to reconfigure her classroom on the fly in ways in which make sense for her college students. Consequently, “I can have my college students work together with their studying in methods they weren’t in a position to do (earlier than),” she observes.

Lecturers can simply arrange their lecture rooms in several methods to assist several types of studying actions, resembling complete class instruction or small group work. The tables with writeable surfaces encourage creativity by permitting college students to sketch or jot down notes any time.

“When you may have the appropriate instruments, it makes an enormous distinction,” Bukowski says.

Versatility isn’t the one profit. The lecturers have seen that college students are extra comfy, higher behaved, and extra absolutely engaged in studying. As a result of they take delight within the new furnishings, they wish to maintain it wanting good.

“The scholars typically acknowledged that they felt the (previous) desks have been ugly and inappropriate for his or her age. Receiving the brand new desks and chairs has been a sport changer within the classroom,” Brown says. Provides SBLP Supervisor Ron Rodney: “It made the scholars really feel a way of delight that somebody cares sufficient to offer them with these new gadgets.”

This sense of delight is mirrored within the effort that college students are giving. Case Supervisor Julia Briggs describes a dialog she had with a guardian shortly after the brand new furnishings was put in.

“She instructed me that she is so completely happy her son got here to our St. Ann’s campus,” Briggs says. “She sees a constructive change in him at house and in his faculty experiences, and she or he may be very grateful.”