As a group of five students stood in front of a classroom door, they held a ribbon ready to cut and officially open the Wellness Room at Arbor Elementary School. Then they opened the door and ran inside to explore the new room.
The Cleveland Browns Foundation's Stay in the Game! Attendance Network (SITG!) and University Hospitals partnered to create a Wellness Room and Care Closet for the students at Arbor Elementary School in the Euclid City School District. The spaces are accessible to students and families to promote the overall well-being of the community with the goal of supporting attendance. Health-related issues are one of the barriers to consistent attendance, which resources like the Wellness Room and Care Closet aim to alleviate.
"It's just beautiful. I'm excited to have these things because these are resources that my students don't always have," Principal of Arbor Elementary School LaWanda Prettyman said. "And because they don't always have those things, we want to make sure that they get what they deserve."
The Wellness Room is designed to support the mental health of students, offering stress-relieving activities and tools to foster mindfulness. Through the addition of comfortable and flexible seating for students, a smart board, informational posters and resources from University Hospitals on de-escalation and calming techniques, as well as different sensory activities around the room, the room was transformed into a calming space for students.
Those students also participated in a journaling activity with Senior Medical Director of the Rainbow Primary Care Institute at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children's Dr. Kevin Turner, Browns long snapper Rex Sunahara and Chomps. They each shared their experience about journaling and being creative through art. Turner said journaling can help the students express their feelings on paper and assist them in de-stressing.
DaLan Johnson, who serves as the Family Liaison at Arbor Elementary School, works with students on their individual needs and groups of students either in the Wellness Room or in other classrooms to help regulate their emotions. His classroom was chosen for the Wellness Room to be a space where students could regulate their emotions and have a safe environment within the school, ultimately supporting consistent attendance.
Johnson said the renovated room will allow him to be able to do more with his groups of students in a space where they can work on supporting whole child development. The Wellness Room was created to provide an environment that doesn't feel like school for the students, which allows them the space to relax.
"When I first started here, I really had a vision of a space like this," Johnson said. "It's very difficult not having the resources. And so, it really transformed into this oasis that is just bigger than what I could have ever dreamed of. I've wanted to really be able to help the students be calm in a world of chaos that they have had so far. So, this has been more than I could ever ask for."
The Care Closet was established next to the Wellness Room and provides essential items such as hygiene products, clothing and school supplies. It also features health literature such as posters, flyers, brochures and a resource board, as well as items such as ChapStick and hand sanitizer contributed by University Hospitals.
The students had a chance to shop individually in the Care Closet with the help of Chomps and Sunahara. They each received a SITG! and University Hospitals tote bag to use as they shopped. For Johnson, the addition of the Care Closet holds a high value for the students, their families and the community.
"To be able to have the students and the community and their families come here and get those things, that allows them to be able to come to school," Johnson said. "Having those resources for them, especially in the wintertime here in Cleveland. We had so many kids without coats, and being able to have that resource and say, 'Here's a coat, you don't have to stay at home,' is such an added bonus."
The Stay in the Game! Attendance Network – launched in 2019 by the Cleveland Browns Foundation, Ohio Department of Education and Workforce and Harvard's Proving Ground and managed by Battelle – is working to improve student attendance by partnering with school districts across Ohio, districts like Euclid City Schools.
School attendance is directly linked with success in the classroom. Students who are not chronically absent are 3.9 times more likely to read on grade level by the end of third grade and are three times more likely to graduate from high school on time.
"The Stay in the Game! program has been great," Prettyman said. "They have done a lot for our district. They have given incentives to the students, and they have really put it in the kids' minds that being at school, it's where it is. That's what you need to do in order to be that well-rounded, whole person. So, I really appreciate the Cleveland Browns and Stay in the Game! because they are the ones encouraging us to do more for our students so that we get them here so that we can treat that whole person."
