Thurston Middle School students get a new hideaway at the Away Place

For a place that’s supposed to be calming, the crowd of preteens stampeding on a dirt pathway the minute it opened might indicate otherwise.

Nevertheless, the idea of serenity led Thurston Middle School teacher Penny Herrick-Dressler and her Ecology Club to begin the Away Place, which recently finished construction and opened Friday afternoon on the Laguna Beach campus.

“I kind of reflect on my middle school years and about how awkward I felt, and sometimes when I was a kid and now as a teacher I see kids that clearly just need to decompress and need to not be in social situations,” said Herrick-Dressler, a health and physical education teacher.

“Just a place where we can be quiet,” Herrick-Dressler said. “I think that by its nature at schools, the place where that would happen would be the library. But our library is not that. We don’t call it [that] anymore; it’s a collaboratorium.”

Signs are posted by the entrance to the Away Place, a small plaza by the school’s gymnasium and science building where curved, stone-like chairs are lined up along a winding dirt path interspersed with low shrubbery and grass. Some of the seats face one another, others don’t.

Students made themselves comfortable during lunchtime Friday. Some swung their feet while they talked to their friends, others rocked in their seats in silence.

The project was funded by a $25,000 grant from SchoolPower, an educational nonprofit, and a $5,000 donation from last year’s graduating class.

It was spearheaded by Herrick-Dressler’s Ecology Club, which tries to focus on one big project every year to improve the campus.

Thurston Middle School students test the oversize chairs in the new Away Place, which opened Friday to give kids a place to get away from it all while remaining on campus.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

One year, it was a 12-by-8-foot mural made of bottle caps. Another year, it was a butterfly garden.

This time it was the Away Place.

“I asked about [the students’] stress levels and talked about how nature nurtures,” Herrick-Dressler said. “How can we create something on campus that is still in nature but still on campus?

“The group and I walked around asking, ‘How about here? What about here?’ We ... looked around campus and wanted to ... create a nice, mindful space with plants and nice comfortable seating.”

It was originally expected to be completed earlier this school year, but delays pushed the start of construction to December.

“The students wanted to create the feeling ... it would be a quiet place. They wanted to feel like even though they were right there, they could have a little bit of a secluded area,” Herrick-Dressler said.

Anneka Neukomm, 13, said she was part of the Ecology Club last year when the project started and that being involved in the process was nice. She said she wasn’t very involved with many things on campus but felt that being able to help out and contribute ideas was cool.

Her favorite part is that it’s what she described as a “wooded” area.

“I’m from St. Louis and I miss the woods,” Anneka said. “I can just sit there and just be like, ‘Yay, trees.’ There’s not trees out here as much.”

Students relax Friday in the new Away Place at Thurston Middle School in Laguna Beach.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Mallory Keller, 11, who is in her first year with the club, said the Away Place is a good spot to unwind, and she expects the area to be more crowded during finals week.

Nicholai Grombchevsky, 14, said he didn’t think he’d use the Away Place as much as other students might but agreed that it’s important to have a place like it on campus.

Principal Jenny Salberg said “it’s always important to have spaces on campus ... where the space is encouraging you to unwind or take a deep breath.”

“We talk about that a lot here at Thurston, making good choices,” she said. “I think this will provide an opportunity for kids to just decompress for a bit.”

Now that the Away Place is done, the Ecology Club is looking for its next project.

“I feel super lucky that our district supported the plan and the vision, and I know that most other districts won’t do that. I’m really hopeful that it will be utilized in the right way,” Herrick-Dressler said. “I think we ... proposed it as a place that can be a healing space as opposed to just another place where kids could have lunch. ...

“So, I’m really happy that we got to do it and I’m looking forward to seeing ... from the kids, how do they feel?”

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