Flagler's Rymfire Elementary School cuts ribbon on new sensory room

PALM COAST — Flagler County Schools celebrated the opening of Rymfire Elementary’s new sensory room — home to a ball pit, numerous sensory boards, a few therapy trampolines and fiber-optic lighting — with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Dec. 22.

Sensory rooms, according to a district press release, are designed for students with multiple sensory needs, particularly those with disabilities, to develop their senses during the school day. The rooms are controlled, intentionally created to support students' needs and help them engage in learning.

While some students may have scheduled time in sensory rooms, others will use it on an as-needed basis. Typically, students will spend between 10 and 15 minutes in the room.

By February, eight other Flagler schools will have sensory rooms: Belle Terre, Wadsworth, Bunnell and Old Kings elementary schools; Buddy Taylor and Indian Trails middle schools; and Matanzas and Flagler-Palm Coast high schools.

Each room will look slightly different based on the school’s specific demographics.

“There’s a multitude of sensory (experiences) in the room, from tactile, to pressure, to lights, to sound, and it’s very individualized and autonomous to what sensory needs a student is seeking,” said Mindy Morris, lead district behavior specialist.

Essentially, according to Joseph DiPuma, coordinator of innovation, the rooms allow students to activate their five senses and improve their overall well-being.

“We always want to improve health and wellness,” he said. “I think that’s our number one goal — productivity (too), of course. But we want to design spaces, not just for our students, and not just for our teachers, but for humans. We want people to come in. We want them to feel good. We want them to leave feeling good. We want to make their day better, and I’m hoping that this room does.”

Who will benefit from the sensory room?

Sensory rooms were designed for students with multiple sensory needs, specifically students with disabilities. And students must have parental permission to participate.

Staff will supervise students and encourage them to engage with all that the rooms have to offer. According to the district, all participating staff members will be trained with two videos — Sensory Room Training and Sensory Processing and Self-Regulation — to create a quiet and comfortable environment for students to “explore, unwind and create.”

These rooms, however, will not be used as a response to students who show problematic, challenging or maladaptive behavior, according to the district.

“I am very excited to share this with our community, and even more excited to see how this intervention supports our students with disabilities,” said Kimberli Halliday, director of exceptional student education.

Who funded Flagler's sensory rooms?

Flagler Schools has been working to develop sensory rooms district wide for almost two years.

“All of the sensory rooms were kind of a learning experience," DiPuma said. "We had to connect with a lot of different people to figure out the tools that we needed."

Each participating school was allocated $50,000 to address specific needs of students with disabilities through a federally funded Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief grant, which covered all expenses, according to Tammy Yorke, Flagler Schools coordinator of federal programs.

“Just like all of our other spaces, we never say that we’re finished — we say that we’re 99% there,” DiPuma said. “We will come back and monitor, take video recording for internal use. We’ll watch those recordings. We’ll see what works and what doesn’t work. And something what’s really beautiful might not be working, so that will have to get changed and switched out to something.”

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Flagler Schools to launch 9 sensory rooms district wide by February