MIDLAND, TEXAS (BIG2/FOX24)- Greenwood’s James R. Brooks Middle School unveiled a new addition to the hallway Wednesday, November 20th.
A sensory hallway was added near the East Gym.
“As we’ve built new campuses, and created more spaces and different spaces, we needed a sensory room, so to speak,” Greenwood ISD Superintendent Ariel Elliott says. “The best space that they came up with was this hallway we’re not really using, so they developed it down the hallway which was actually bigger than a room and give them a lot more opportunity to be creative.”
This hallway all started with students from ms. Latham’s gifted and talented class wanting to help the special education department.
Brooks Middle School Principal Kristi Griffin says the students went above and beyond to make it possible.
“They didn’t just make it happen, they talked to the kids, found out about their interests, and then they took that and put it into everything that they did in the hallway,” Griffin says. “It was specific to those kids in that classroom and they just made it 1,000 times more than we imagined that it could be.”
The purpose of the hallway is to help the students better their daily skills.
“It’s just different motor skills, different cognitive activities, anything that they may use later in life, there’s the grocery store,” Griffin says. “And then just colors, numbers, you know things to practice that we may take for granted every day, but these kids work really hard to develop those skills.”
Although the hallway was created with the special education students in mind, superintendent Elliott says hundreds will be able to use it.
“Lots of students have issues with sensory, and how to cope with different things,” Elliott says. “So it allows them to do that on their own time in a space that’s a safe space to learn how to deal with those things.”
Superintendent Elliott says it’s unbelievable how high of a quality the students made the hallway.
“They’ve done a great job of developing something that’ll be here for a long time.”