Studies from the United States Census Bureau and the American Medical Association concluded that learning among young school children is greatly impacted by noise and distraction. The additional test data that followed from the studies conducted by parents, teachers and acoustical consultants around the country, revealed that classrooms were not being designed to mitigate these detractors.

Background noise and reverberation have severe adverse effects on learning—especially in children between the ages of 6 and 13, who require a higher audible level in order to hear. Young children, because they are less efficient listeners than adults, require quiet conditions for optimal hearing and comprehension. Poor classroom acoustics create poor learning conditions, especially for children with speech impairments, learning disabilities, attention deficit and other behavioral disorders. And children facing language barriers, hearing loss and assistive hearing aids are even more disadvantaged.

According to the United States Census Bureau report nearly 20% of all school children are not native English speakers, and 5-11% are limited in their English proficiency. Another report by the Journal of the American Medical Association, reported that four out of 1,000 infants are diagnosed with hearing loss each year, and 13-15% have one-sided or mild hearing loss.

Combine these statistics with poor classroom acoustic design, and it is easy to see how studies and reports show school aged children with normal hearing miss nearly 25% of classroom instruction, and children with hearing loss and language barriers miss almost 50%.

As a response to these alarming findings, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved Standard S12.60-2002, a copy of which is available at no cost from asastore.aip.org. The standard sets forth the maximum background noise and reverberation time, as well as minimum sound isolation requirements between spaces and rooms.

For core classrooms with enclosed volumes less than 566 m3, the maximum one-hour average A-weighted steady background noise level is 35 dB. The background noise criterion is based on a Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR-the sound intensity level produced by the signal source, in relation to the sound level of the background noise) of 15-decibels.

The maximum acceptable Reverberation Time (RT) is 0.6 seconds for classrooms with enclosed volumes less than 283 m3 and 0.7 seconds for classrooms with enclosed volumes between 283 m3 and 566 m3. (RT is the time it takes for steady sound in a room to diminish by 60 decibels after it has been turned off.)

Making the standard a part of your design begins with facility planning and carries throughout the entire construction timeline. Proper coordination among architects, general contractors, the facility design staff, equipment suppliers and manufacturers is the first step. Choosing building sites located away from major highways, airports and industrial plants comes next. Finally, designing a building layout that separates the noisy public zones from the quiet study areas completes the formula. To achieve the standard's guidelines, ANSI has outlined some recommendations as follows:

It's easy. Krieger acoustical doors and windows already meet Standard S12.60-2002 guidelines and offer the highest STC ratings in the industry today. In fact, Krieger has been supplying quality acoustical doors and windows for school theaters, auditoriums, performance halls and music rooms for over 80 years now. Offering door assemblies with ratings up to STC 55 and window assemblies up to STC 56, Krieger falls well within the minimum requirements for total STC ratings between core learning spaces and adjacent spaces. Plus, Krieger doors and windows can be custom manufactured for any size you need as either single or double leafs, manual or power operated and any finish to match your project.

Because it utilizes design and construction techniques already familiar to architects and engineers, incorporating the ANSI Standard into your designs is easy and rarely requires the involvement of acoustical consultants. For those who view themselves as leaders in the industry the Standard offers a great opportunity to raise the bar on quality construction for the educational industry. Those who choose to ignore it do so at the cost of their own good name and company image, especially if the standard does become a formal building code—a possibility that is not entirely unlikely.