Savannah Kerns, an 11-year-old sixth grader, struggles with social anxiety. Crowds overwhelm her. “I feel like if I get something wrong, people laugh at me,” she said.
Kerns recently transitioned from elementary school to Pleasant Hills Middle School in the South Hills. She’s navigating her class schedule in a larger environment and encountering a wider variety of teachers and students.
Some of those students — “mostly guys from different classes” — bullied her. “Especially because of my weight and style,” said Kerns, who wore an elegant, floor-length black dress while speaking with this reporter in the school’s “Chill Room.” She regularly seeks refuge in the space, which is designed to soothe with soft lighting, abundant plants and nature motifs, including an enclosed seating area built by IKEA decorators to look like a hollowed tree. It’s as wide as a young giant sequoia and can accommodate at least 10 students.
This Chill Room is one of 50 in K-12 schools across Allegheny, Washington, Bedford and Erie counties — scaled up from just two when the Allegheny Health Network’s (AHN) Chill Project launched in 2019. The program sets up calming spaces in participating schools that evoke natural environments such as the woods or a bear den (for the Clairton High School Bears)…