TES opens sensory room for pupils

If one of the darkened but vividly decorated rooms at Tucumcari Elementary School looks like a good place to chill, you wouldn't be wrong.

The former classroom contains a trampoline, a sensory swing, a tunnel, an interactive light board, a crash pad bed and plenty of colored LED lights. Flooring even is sensory-minded.

It's all part of the school's first-ever sensory room for students, said Heidi McEwen, the school's occupational therapist assistant. It is the first such room in the region.

The room is designed to de-stress pupils on the autistic spectrum or who have a sensory processing disorder, McEwen said.

"It's to self-regulate their sensory systems," she said. "They can come in here, calm and self-regulate, and go back to class and be more successful academically. They need that outlet."

Children who checked out the sensory room on Thursday morning delighted in it, bouncing on the trampoline and exploring other aspects of it.

"The kids are really excited about it," McEwen said, "all the kids ... even the ones who don't have a disability."

Once school begins, McEwen said three children will be able to use the room at a time with a supervisor present.

McEwen said she wanted a sensory room for 17 years, but it was special-education director Dianne McKinney who green-lit the project in early 2023.

"I thought it needed to be done," McKinney said, also hired as elementary principal this summer.

McEwen made a smaller version of a sensory room in her classroom last year. She said saw good result with students almost right away.

"And the teachers noticed it," McKinney added. "The teachers said, 'It's working.'"

The sensory room project received a boost in $20,000 in Title I funds, plus fundraising by parents and teachers, for the renovations.

McEwen said the next-closest sensory room at a school she's aware of is in Amarillo.

McKinney said the goal is to add a sensory room at Tucumcari Middle School.