Officially known as ANSI S12.60-2002, "American National Standard Acoustical Performance Criteria, Design Requirements, and Guidelines for Schools," this standard is designed to provide helpful guidance to design professionals, educational facilities planners, and the general public as well. The standard was developed by Accredited Standards Committee S12, Noise, under American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved operating procedures.

The Acoustical Society relies upon sales of standards to help fund its standards development activities, so it cannot give them away for free. These industry supporters recognized the opportunity to benefit the public by making this standard available at no cost to the user.

"These businesses, all innovators in their fields, are demonstrating their great leadership by partnering with us to make this important classroom acoustics standard freely available to all. Application of this standard will assure that no child is left behind because they cannot hear or be heard by their fellow students or the teacher," said Paul Schomer, ASA's standards director.

The standard is available through the ASA Standards Store at http://asastore.aip.org/. Users will be asked to establish a username and password and accept the End User License before downloading the standard.

Publication date: 08/08/2005