NILES — Sensory overload can be overwhelming, and Kelly Westgate, Ballard Elementary special education teacher, has seen it happen in the districts she has taught at over the years.

“When their sensory overload is just too much, [students become] unable to focus,” she said. “They’re becoming irritable. They’re maybe becoming anxious or fearful.”

So, Westgate led an effort to secure funding for a sensory regulation room at Ballard. A few weeks before the spring semester ended, she received a $1,000 check from the Niles Education Foundation.

“They have a room to go to engage in some sensory activities that will hopefully kind of center them again,” she said about the students.

The room, about a third the size of a typical classroom, will contain objects meant to work children’s proprioception, or awareness of their bodies and movements.

A trampoline, a climbing wall, bars to hang from and a soft, bouncy floor will be placed in the room, she said. The proprioception objects will also serve as a way for students to get mild exercise and stretch.

The room will also contain what Westgate calls a “quiet-down area.” Students can enter a tent with windows and listen to calm music.

If a student is overwhelmed by noise, they can put on noise-cancelling headphones. If a student is overwhelmed by lights, they can relax in the room’s dimmed lights. If they are anxious and tense, they can use the active equipment.

All objects in the room are meant to ground students, ease them out of their sensory overload states and allow them to come back to class calmer, more focused and less anxious.

“When you left class, you were likely, probably, off task and agitated and upset,” Westgate said. “The goal is that when you come back to class, you’re better able to focus. You’re better able to attend to both academic needs but also your social-emotional needs.”

That, in turn, is meant to allow students to begin developing their social-emotional dependency, a district-wide goal.

“We’re really trying to get kids to self-regulate, to realize when they’re anxious or angry or scared without needing an adult to help them out,” Westgate said. “That’s happening across the board.”

The room is open to all students, but a student must be first identified as a room participant by a general education or special education teacher and approved by Westgate and the Berrien Regional Educational Service Agency occupational therapist that works with Ballard Elementary.

Students would use the proprioception objects for 10 minutes. That could follow with five minutes in the quiet-down area if requested.

Westgate said that sensory regulation rooms are typically thought to be for special education students only, but it can help many more.

“We have a lot of kids within the building that are either identified on the autism spectrum or they just have some sensory issues,” she said. “Sometimes it’s just those kids who have those self-regulation problems.”

Westgate hopes to eventually expand the room’s offerings to include objects for students with non-proprioception needs, like those with touch and smell sensitivities.

She also hopes that other area public school districts find out about the low-cost room and consider creating one of their own.

For now, though, she is excited to help students out when the room is set up and opened within the first few weeks of school.

“There’s a lot going on in their lives, and I think a lot will benefit from this,” Westgate said.

She said she is appreciative of Ballard Principal Jeron Blood, a former special education teacher who gave her near-immediate approval to apply for the room’s grant.

She is also appreciative of the NEF.

“I was beyond happy when I found out,” she said. “I can’t thank them enough, really, for the kids, because we’re going to see such a difference.”

Westgate and three other Niles Community Schools staff will be recognized during Aug. 9’s NEF Legendary Evening at the Grand LV on Third Street in Niles.