Investigation of noise issues at U‐Hill Elementary School

University Hill Elementary School (U‐Hill) has a reputation amongst its teachers, staff and parents as being a noisy school. The present work is an assessment of the acoustical environment at U‐Hill with a focus on evaluating how various noise sources contribute to the total noise levels measured in four classrooms. A questionnaire was completed by several of U‐Hill’s teachers to determine their reactions to the school’s acoustical environments and what they perceived to be the prevalent noise sources. Standard physical measurements of classroom background noise and reverberation time were made and compared to existing acceptability criteria. Measurements of sound propagation and transmission were made to determine how noise propagates in the hallway, as well as into and between adjacent learning spaces, and the effect of open doors and door grates. Dosimeters were used to monitor sound levels at various hallway source locations and received in the four classrooms studied. Octave‐band measurements of typical noise‐source levels, such as children walking in the hallways and entering through school doors were made. The measurement data was used to estimate the contributions to total noise levels in the four classrooms of the various noise sources inside and outside the classrooms.