‘Really beautiful and really nice’: Hinsdale grad designs sensory hallway

Students at Hinsdale Elementary School try out a new sensory floor design that was created by Trinity Stroud, a senior at Hinsdale Middle High School, as part of her Extended Learning Opportunities (ELO).

BY BOB AUDETTE Vermont News & Media

Students can learn to weld or how to be an administrator in a town office, they can rebuild a baseball dugout, work with a veterinarian or start a career in health care.

Trinity Stroud, Class of 2023, who is pursuing a degree in graphic design at UMass-Dartmouth, has spent the last year working at Elite Vinyl in Hinsdale, exploring her passion while getting school credits and a paycheck.

“I did my ELO because I didn’t know if I wanted to do graphic design or not,” said Stroud. “I realized I really liked it and as [Elite Vinyl owner] Jason [Ashcroft] said, ‘That’s where the money is.’”

“She worked on quite a lot of projects,” said Ashcroft, during a visit to Hinsdale Elementary School to show off their work on a sensory hallway. “It gets her a little expe- rience under her belt so when she gets out there in the real world, she knows what’s really going on.”

The skills Stroud learned on the job included computer design, tinting windows, applying vinyl and vehicle wraps, and using an industrial cutter.

All of those skills came in handy when Stroud decided she wanted to give back to her school by designing and applying vinyl designs in a long hallway in the elementary school.

“For kids that are very dysregulated and have trouble calming and getting ready to learn, a sensory hallway is a way for them to move their bodies and get the wiggle out and become more regulated so that they’re able to come back into the classroom where they’re ready to learn,” said Deb Carrier, who has spent 34 years teaching in Hinsdale, the last two as a kindergarten teacher.

Carrier received a $1,500 grant from the Hinsdale Educational

Foundation to develop a sensory hallway and had been conducting mostly unsatisfactory research online when someone directed her to Ashcroft and Elite Vinyl.

According to Edutopia, in a sensory hallway students hop, skip, and jump following directions applied to the floor to help them develop proprioception, or an awareness of where their bodies are in space.

“One reason I wanted to do this was when I was a kid in elementary school I was kind of rambunctious,” said Stroud. “I had a lot of stuff going on at home and some mental health problems. I wasn’t ‘all there’ and had trouble learning in a classroom. I felt like if I had had one of these [sensory hallways] I would have had a grand time.”

In addition to applying the skills she learned at Elite Vinyl, Stroud applied her creative imagination to the designs. She also organized a fundraiser, sold some of her artwork and started a raffle to help pay for the materials. The project also received $250 from Ryker Bauer’s Pawsome Adventure Box .

After meeting with Ashcroft and Stroud, Carrier met with the school’s occupational therapy staff to come up with a list of ideas for the hallway.

“When you come down it you kind of work your body up and then you come down to tiptoeing and calming yourself with a tree pose and deep breaths,” said Carrier, whose father, Lewis Major, taught mathematics in Hinsdale for 36 years. “You work your energy level up and then you calm yourself down so when you come back to the classroom, you’re more settled.”

KRISTOPHER RADDER — VERMONT NEWS & MEDIA

Stroud, Ashcroft and Carrier all thanked the community for its support, both for the sensory hallway and the ongoing support the schools get throughout the year.

“I’m really socially anxious,” said Stroud. “I have a hard time. But so many people were supportive and wanted to contribute to the elemen- tary school. So I find that really beautiful and really nice.”

And Ashcroft couldn’t speak highly enough about Hinsdale’s Extended Learning Opportunities program.

“I think it’s important to teach our kids a skill set,” said Ashcroft. “And the ELO program is a fantastic way to do it.”