Area preschool teachers are coming through loud and clear
Berlin Elementary Tri-County Preschool teacher Janet Boyd uses one of the newly purchased amplification systems to garner and keep the attention of her classroom of youngsters. Five new devices were recently installed in Holmes County preschools, thanks to donations from a number of area businesses and organizations.
Imagine yourself in a room with a dozen or more amped-up preschool-age children charging around the room with uninhibited glee.
That is a scenario that area preschool teachers face every day, and it isn’t always easy to gain the focus of 15 preschoolers and hold their attention for any period of time.
While doing so is paramount to maintaining an orderly and constructive classroom, several Holmes County preschool teachers have recently been given a boost in their ability to capture the attention of the young ones through donations from several area businesses and organizations that have allowed the classrooms to purchase new amplification devices.
While the amplification systems are great for all preschoolers in the Tri-County Preschool System, Berlin Elementary preschool teacher Janet Boyd said the benefits for children with special needs and hearing issues is astounding.
“It reduces the ambient noise and helps children with hearing impairments, and all of the children in general listen better and stay more focused on what we are teaching,” Boyd said. “They really can get more tuned in than without them because our voices carry better and stronger, so they are more apt to pay attention. When the amplifier is on, they are quiet because it deadens all of the other noise that usually gets their attention.”
The devices are designed so a teacher simply wears the microphone, and the amplification device does the rest.
At the Holmes County Board of Developmental Disabilities, preschool teacher Amber Parrot’s system was purchased through funds from Commercial & Savings Bank while Jennifer Kirby’s room received its device through the generosity of Feikert Sand & Gravel.
At Millersburg Elementary Bryee Ramirez was gifted a system through the Millersburg Eagles while Keely Wolfe’s class has a new device courtesy of the Millersburg Lion’s Club.
Boyd’s system was paid for through funds from the American Legion, American Legion Auxiliary, Millersburg Rotary, Feikert Sand & Gravel, and an anonymous donation.
Each classroom formerly had an older device, but they were failing, and repairing them was no longer an option because the company that made the old devices no longer does that.
The new Lightspeed Red Cat Access amplification systems cost $1,231 each, and Ann Marie Tomchak, speech language therapist at Tri-County Preschool, recognized the need, so she began to petition different area organizations and businesses to see if there would be any interest in creating funds for new devices.
“We have portable amplification devices in the classrooms, and the teachers wear a microphone, and there is an amplifier in the classroom to make her voice louder than the ambient noise so children can hear more clearly the important information being presented to them,” Tomchak said. “This amplified instruction is so important that all new building construction is required to have classrooms wired for amplification.”
Boyd said Tomchak has had experience with these kinds of devices working with classrooms in Ashland County. When she came on board with Tri-County Preschools of East Holmes and West Holmes, she brought with her several old devices for the classrooms to experiment with. Boyd said those older models worked well but were simply dying.
“Ann Marie had a letter that she provided that we sent out to parents, and then Keely really got on board and did a lot of the fundraising for the systems,” Boyd said.
Each of the teachers sent letters to the various businesses and organizations in the community, and the wheels were set in motion to purchase five new amplification systems.
“It has made a huge impact on our classroom,” Ramirez said. “They can hear us so much better than they could without amplification. With this being an older building, with wood floors and the fans going, it is hard to hear, and it has definitely made it easier for us to keep their attention and for them to remain more focused.”
Boyd said while the devices are the critical part of the process of improving preschool teaching classroom settings, the importance of the community getting behind the Tri-County Preschool classrooms and promoting better education is every bit as important.
“We can’t say thank you enough to those organizations and businesses who made donations and recognized the importance of these devices,” Boyd said.
Boyd went on to say they are in the process of having the children write letters of thanks to each of the donors to help them better understand the gift each classroom was given.
“We just want each organization to realize how grateful we are for their generosity and for their commitment to bettering our children’s education,” Boyd said.