Memphis, TN: District-wide use of "ReSet rooms" for "calming/de-escalation"

July 21, 2021, ABC 24, Memphis, TN: SCS working to reduce school suspensions by expanding ReSET rooms https://www.localmemphis.com/article/news/local/scs-to-expand-reset-rooms-from-30-schools-to-127-to-try-to-reduce-school-suspensions/522-ae57d6eb-a8d4-4792-a948-6160061515ba

Instead of a trip to the principal's office, the Shelby County School district hopes students can "reset" their behavior with a trip to a room that promotes calming and de-escalation techniques. This fall that program is going district-wide in hopes of cutting down on suspensions. Kirby High School was among the first schools to get a designated ReSET room, an intervention step to hopefully save them from a trip to the office of Kirby Principal Dr. Steevon Hunter. “Here’s a place where students can come de-escalate and resolve whatever outbursts they had or being upset about a fight or a grade whatever it is," Dr. Hunter said. Inside each ReSET room, a teaching assistant works with students. The district said the assistant is trained to help students dealing with trauma and helping students with de-escalation techniques. “We do what we can to get them back into the class to have the right mindset and ready to grow and learn," Dr. Hunter…. “This is not a punitive environment," Dr. Angela Hargrave, Student Equity Enrollment Discipline (SEED) Executive Director, said. "It’s a restorative environment. A student may have committed some kind of infraction that prior to this space may have landed a child in the principal’s office and possibly suspended from school.”… In that first year, the district said 1,400 students were redirected to the ReSET rooms at the 30 schools.