Washington students seek support in therapeutic classrooms

WASHINGTON — After implementing therapeutic classrooms and staff in the Washington Community School District almost a year ago, educators saw overwhelming student use.

Four therapeutic classrooms were opened, and a multidisciplinary team was assembled using a federal grant through the law, SF2360 signed in 2020, which aims to create safe learning spaces for students, such as therapeutic classrooms.

The Department of Education distributed up to $2,351,382 for 2022-23 to Ames, Clinton, Eastern Allamakee, Hinton, Mount Pleasant and Washington school districts to build therapeutic classrooms last August.

A therapeutic classroom is designed to support any student “whose emotional, social, or behavioral needs interfere with the student’s ability to be successful in the current educational environment,” according to the grant.

The district received $542,025 of the grant, Nicole Gish, a therapeutic teacher at Washington Middle School’s Navigating Emotions and Stress Through Teaching (NESTT) room, said.

Gish said after a year, about 100 students dropped in to the classrooms across the district.

Gish said in total, the district had 54 students regularly receiving ongoing support.

“We’ve been very fortunate that students have really taken advantage of the opportunity to have just kind of a safe place to decompress, kind of learn some new coping skills, and then to be able to learn a skill so they can then take into the classrooms,” she said.

With younger students, Brooke Anderson, a therapeutic teacher at Stewart Elementary School, said she had a lot of drop-in students and student referrals by teachers.

“I also had some students that have a quite a bit of trauma that happened to during the school year, and they were just really needing just kind of a safe place to be,” she said.

Therapeutic classroom setup

Gish said the rooms have comfortable seating and calm lighting, and tools like fidget toys and Zen gardens. She added that students can also make art, music, and practice yoga as well.

“Our hope is that we teach them the skills that they need to then be able to practice generalizing their skills in authentic environments, like their classroom,” she said. “So many of our kids have had such high levels of trauma and they just need a place to go a person to have a connection with and somebody to help them build some skills, so they can be successful in the classroom.”

Department of Education Bureau Chief Brad Niebling said in an Iowa Ideas In-Depth Week session there is a growing recognition in the Iowa Legislature to focus on student mental health.

“The policies are now creating more opportunities for us to pursue that work,” Niebling said.

Gish said the district developed the NESTT, without knowing that the Iowa City Community School District’s NESTT (Navigating Emotions and Stress Through Training) existed. The Iowa City High NESTT opened two years ago, serving almost 1,700 walk-in students this year.

The Washington schools provide student therapy and counseling through the Grace C. Mae Advocate Center, which 183 students (11 percent of students) used during the last academic year, she said.

“That's just through one service provider, Gish said. “There's many others that you know, are receiving outside therapy.”

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