I'm guessing this should be on the Free For All page? Anyway, we have a noise situation in our cafeteria. It does get pretty loud at lunch time. There are 2 grade levels at a time in there, which is anywhere from 7-9 classes. The kids are just talking in regular voices, but with that many, and the poor acoustics inherent in a cinderblock, rectangular room, it gets bad. From what I've read on some websites, it's the sound reverberation time that needs to be lowered to decrease the volume and make speech more intelligible.
Our PTO bought the traffic lights that go to yellow and then red at a certain decibel level---no luck. Evidently, some of the kids took great pleasure at purposely setting them off with a shreik or other brief, loud noise. I guess the teachers on duty were not able to keep up with who was doing it, so they were unable to discipline the guilty ones. I think the traffic lights are now sitting in a closet somewhere.
We are now in the process of getting a bid for sound absorption panels for the upper walls. Our principal asked me to contact the supplier who did recent work on our high school band and choir room remodeling/reconstruction. I'm waiting for a call back at this time, so I have no price yet.
We'll have to turn the money over to the school board, who will then enter into any contract for purchase and installation. In answer to your question, yes, the noise really can be bad; I'm also sure there are some staff members who don't like any noise whatsoever. I hate the thought of making the kids eat silently, so whatever we can do to make the environment better, we're willing to do it.
