Interview with a Second Grade Teacher

What is the function of the safe seat?

Our building has PBIS so that’s one of the steps in the plan. If you can’t pull it together with a reminder, you go to the safe seat. Student or teacher can send a person there. Then a student would go to the buddy room for 15 minutes if they still have problems, and then the office.

In our room, I say we are here to think and to learn and to do our best. If you can’t work in pods you can scoot your desk. If that’s not working, you can move yourself to the carpet table, the back table, or one of the skinny tables.

With Student J, he has a hard time regulating emotions. He panics. After lots of conversations about how he is distracting others, I tell him, “Go to the safe seat.” I try to talk with him. He uses it to cool off and comes back when he is ready. He has reduced the frequency of using it.

(When I was in this teacher's room Student J would send himself to the safe seat almost every subject due to frustration. He would get worked up and go back there with a mad look on his face or crying)

I use Cool Tools - the safe seat is not a bad thing but a place to calm down.

We want to keep them in the classroom. It is a way to put words on a place to calm down. As a teacher, I am supposed to touch base with students when they go to the safe seat.

It’s built into the discipline policy. Students and teachers benefit from the structure. We try to frame it as a place to get away.

Did you receive training about the safe seat?

We’ve learned over the years, but there was no intensive training.

It’s preventive and a pre-correct. I used to have a couch / soft chair in the library area before the safe seat so that kids could remove themselves. I also use “Go to the carpet.”

I think that it is effective.

They know when I send them there it’s because they are too wild. They know how it’s more serious if a teacher sends them there.

It’s helping them figure out how to problem-solve.

It’s an extension of a different place to be.