From providing new resources to implementing a Bridge To Wellness program, WCHS has done a lot for mental health. Now, they are going one step further. With the new installation of a rage room, WCHS is taking a modern approach to combat student stress and anxiety. After all, what is better for stress relief than smashing plates and taking a baseball bat to a table? 

This new experiment, known as the “WCHS Rage Room” can be found next to the counseling hallway. Complete with soundproof walls, the rage room is the perfect place to get out aggression in a productive way. To make this as safe as possible, each student, or rage participant, must be dressed in goggles, closed-toe shoes, gloves, a helmet and a full-body hazmat suit. 

Take a step into the rage room and pick your poison. There are piles of things to smash, break, crack and destroy. Whether it is a desk, broken Chromebooks or old failed quizzes and tests that can be ripped to shreds, all students will find a way to let out their frustration. 

“This new addition to the mental health initiatives at WCHS will benefit students tremendously. As a school that already has broken soap dispensers in almost every bathroom, dented lockers and the occasional fist fight, now students can channel this aggression into a place dedicated to it,” creator of the WCHS rage room and its primary administrator Randy Rager said. “I am proud to have brought this to the school and the school board mandates it throughout all of Montgomery County.”

The Rage Room will be open from 7:45 to 2:30 Monday through Friday. Students can go in groups of 2 into the Rage Room for a total of 30 minutes, making it so multiple groups can go during lunch. 

After the success of the rage room, the counseling office and the WCHS administration are looking for even more ways they can help students during these stressful times. Some ideas that have been thrown around include a room solely dedicated to crying and a napping room where students can sleep during school hours after long nights. To make room for this, WCHS will be saying goodbye to certain classes so they can use their classrooms. No more AP BC Calculus, as those rooms are now meant for crying, and say goodbye to AP Human Geography as nap time will take over those upstairs classrooms. 

“This is such a fantastic idea. School is super draining and I love the idea that I could take a break or let out the rest of my emotions in these ways,” junior Brandon Hammer said. “This is a step in the right direction for WCHS. Instead of sleeping through my classes uncomfortably on a desk or crying in the middle of a lesson, I will finally have a designated place.”

All in all, the WCHS Rage Rooms are a positive new feature to WCHS and will let students get their frustrations out. Don’t be afraid to break things and go check it out for yourself now!

“Anything that has made you upset recently, I want you to channel all that aggravation and anger and walk into our new Rage Rooms,” Rager said. “Don’t be scared and come try it out. Who knows maybe you will come out of the Rage Room a happier and rejuvenated person.”