Because of the way sound-field amplification systems compensate for poor acoustics, they represent an option for relocatable classrooms and open classrooms, she says. As study after study reports the benefits of classroom amplification, more and more districts have decided to install systems. In the Bellevue School District in Bellevue, Wash., the administration is in the midst of a three-year program to install systems in each of its classrooms. To date, amplification systems have been installed in every classroom of all but two of the district s 16 elementary schools. Three of four middle schools have amplified every classroom.
Installations are underway in the high schools.
We started using classroom amplification systems about 10 years ago, says Howard Jensen, the district audiologist. We installed systems in about a dozen elementary school classrooms to help students we had identified as having mild impairments and fluctuating hearing loss. The original idea was to assign a system to a student and move the system from classroom to classroom as the student moved from grade to grade. As we did this, teachers wanted to keep the system, saying that the entire class had benefited. The idea developed a life of its own, and now we re amplifying all our classrooms.