Circleville City School Foundation awards $5,500 grant to kindergarten program for flex seating options 

Written by Evan Debo

Circleville City Schools – The Circleville City School Foundation (CCSF) has awarded a $5,568 grant to the Circleville Elementary kindergarten program for flexible seating options.

The grant enables the kindergarten setting at CES  to be able offer differentiated accommodations to meet a wide range of social, emotional, and health needs for students at an early age. Additionally, these accommodations will be used to ease students into the full school day structure from the preschool setting, often considered their first formalized introduction into schooling at an early age. This measure also aligns with the school’s ‘Daily 5’ literacy curriculum model which puts an emphasis on giving students choice in completing work and staying on task. Research has shown positive effects on student social and emotional learning as the result of being given options where students can “move with the mind” according to Eric Jensen (2000).

“The mission of the Circleville City School Foundation is to enrich educational opportunities for all children,” said Patty Truex, CCSF chair. “In this case, we had the chance to make kindergarten an innovative, 21st Century learning experience for our youngest students. The staff found a creative way to ease students into a formal educational setting by implementing the use of flexible furniture, therefore meeting the needs of a variety of students. We applaud the Kindergarten team for making a compelling case for this grant and were thrilled to play a role in assisting them in this effort.”

In eight kindergarten classrooms, seating will now be offered in the form of choice specifically in the form of multi-use activity trays, wobble chairs, soft-shell plastic rocker chairs, no-slip yoga mats, scoop rocker seats, balance ball desk chairs, and plastic stack stools in addition to a traditional classroom table and chairs setting.