Staff photo/Brian Larsen Deb Waage (left) talks to school board member Mary Sanders about the noise reduction panels (above them) the school recently received and installed after they were awarded a grant from the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation. The panels were installed in the elementary school gymnasium, which, at times, can get quite loud.
The Sawtooth Mountain Elementary gym is quieter and brighter now that it is ringed with large, bright blue noise reduction panels.
The panels sit high above the reach of little hands but not so high that voices can’t reach them.
Sixteen Smurf-blue rectangles were bought with a grant in the amount of $8,500 from the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation. They were purchased from Acoustic Trade Soft Sound Panels in Chambersburg, PA.
Sawtooth Elementary gym teacher Deb Waage applied for the grant because of the loud echo reverberations in the gym. Waage and her husband, Roger Waage, volunteered to install the panels with help from Nick Lindgren.
According to Waage, the noise has been cut in half, and Kaye Borud of Health Services at Cook County schools backs up her claim.
According to Waage, Borud used a “Yacker Tracker,” which is a tool to measure decibel levels. Prior to installation of the panels, Waage noted that the Yacker Tracker did not record an acceptable decibel level between 60 dB and 90dB.
She added that a 60 dB level is at conversation level and a 90 dB level “would be a lawnmower or shop tool level.”
After the installation and with the kids piled into the gym, “several acceptable flashes were recorded in the 60 dB level while no recordings were made at the 90 dB level,” said Waage.
While the total echo of the gym has been reduced, not all of the “extra” noise has been eliminated and there is room to install more panels in the future.
But, as Waage exclaimed, “I have noticed students no longer put their hands over their ears while playing a game. As one student said, ‘The sound doesn’t echo back and forth as many times.'”
While Waage won’t receive much benefit from the panels due to her retirement in January, the longtime elementary school teacher will be thought of every time there is an assembly or physical education class in the gym. If not by the kids, at least by other appreciative teachers and parents who will greatly appreciate the reduction in noise.
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