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The Springfield school board will hear more in February regarding a proposal to spend more than $200,000 on a program to bring yoga and mindfulness classes to the city’s elementary schools.
While local advocates have been pushing for some variation on this proposal since at least 2017, the idea and its application have recently gained greater steam than has been felt in some time.
A measure to fund the innovative new program was previously tabled earlier this month amid further questions concerning the costs and as it relates to what services will be provided as the project is currently constructed and plotted.
Information from District 186 says the program is designed to help students cope with anxiety, deal with trauma, and develop better “self-regulation” techniques in general.
The instructors would work not only with the students, but would, additionally, train the school’s other teachers on how to put those techniques into pracitcal use on a day-to-day, functional basis.
As currently written and conceived, the cost of $192,000 for the instructors and instruction, alongside an additional $35,000 for the necessary related supplies, would be paid for out of federal COVID relief funding.
The board will hear a presentation at its February 6th meeting, with a vote now expected at a later date still to be determined.
