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The district installed a new public address system at the school over the summer to replace the previous system, which had been broken for two years, as well as new clocks to replace ones that were not synchronized.
The new PA system has access to all classrooms, hallways, common areas and open spaces, such as the courtyard and flagpole. “After working with the district facilities’ department for three years, we finally have this new PA system installed,” assistant principal of building and grounds Michael Yi said.
“In some emergency drills during past years, parents were concerned that their kids were somewhere having fun but not knowing what’s going on,” Yi said. “No one dies during an emergency drill, but if they were real emergencies, people could easily be hurt if they could not hear the announcements. Now everyone at Lowell can hear them.”
Yi compared the new system to the weekly test of the citywide Emergency Broadcast System, which sounds every Tuesday at noon.
For the past two years while the PA system was broken, the school had to use the telephone intercom system, which is not ideal, according to Yi. “Some telephones do not work at all for announcements and even if they do work, they’re not loud enough. But now we can use the new PA system, which is much easier and clearer for people to hear.” People were also able to hang up on intercom announcements.
The new system can also be used for ordinary announcements, which are referred to as “all-call” situations because everyone hears them and there is no reply. Radio Lowell, the school’s radio program that broadcasts every Wednesday and Friday during registry, plans to use the new PA system for its broadcasts, according to Radio Lowell sponsor Samuel Williams.
The system will also allow the administration to communicate directly with any specific classroom and hear responses from the room. Both ends on the system are mutually aware that they can be heard by the other because of a dinging privacy alert every 15 seconds, as required by federal regulation.
However, the school administration plans on using this interactive feature only when it is necessary, such as when an emergency occurs, according to Yi. “The PA system, when designed, is not only for announcements, but more importantly, for emergency situations,” Yi stated in an email. “During an emergency, when an individual classroom needs to be contacted, then this interactive feature could easily be used instead of calling any room on the phone, which may not be working during the emergency depending on the nature of the emergency.”
The new system is only accessible from the main office right now; when it is completely programmed, it will also be accessible from a few other locations on campus in case the main office is not accessible during an emergency.
At the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year, the PA system was broken. “The school finished the Americans with Disabilities Act remodeling during the summer, and the old system was probably disabled,” Yi said. “The old PA system just stopped working after the project was finished.”
Because the system was at least 45 years old, parts for it were impossible to find, according to Yi. “Newer schools like Dianne Feinstein Elementary have a better system,” Yi said.
The speakers have yet to be installed in the bungalows, but the buildings and grounds department is working on installing them, according to Yi.
With the installation of the new PA system, 75 new clocks were also installed. As reported in the Nov. 2009 and Mar. 2010 issues of The Lowell, the school clocks have either not worked correctly or not been replaced on time. “People have been complaining for two years about the lack of functioning clocks in the classrooms,” Yi said. The new clocks, which each cost $150, are GPS-capable, allowing satellite system synchronization.
However, there are still an additional 45 clocks that have not been replaced. “The process was stalled because the district buildings and grounds department does not have enough money now,” Yi said.
Both the new PA system and clocks were funded by the building and grounds budget and district funding. The tower for the new PA system cost around $100,000, according to Yi, and because only about half of the speakers are new, the cost for the speakers was relatively less.
According to the staff bulletin for the week of Aug. 23, some rooms can only hear announcements through the phone system. Yi’s temporary substitute, former history teacher Steve Granucci, plans to contact the district buildings and grounds department with a thorough list of all the classrooms without working PA speakers.
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