CID "Quiet School"
Designed with input from parents, teachers, audiologists and other professionals, the CID school is a warm, comfortable private auditory-oral school nestled within a university campus community dedicated to education, research and clinical services to benefit children and adults who are deaf and hard of hearing. The state-of-the-art CID "quiet school," designed with superior classroom acoustics for optimal auditory-oral deaf education, opened in January of 2000.
To take best advantage of the school children's residual hearing and to eliminate distractions to learning, the CID school was meticulously engineered to exceed ASHA-recommended national acoustic guidelines and to incorporate state-of-the-art speech-enhancing technologies. Measures included relocating the school building away from a U.S. interstate highway and using landscaping as a sound buffer. Construction strategies and materials were selected for their ability to reflect sound away from the exterior and to absorb sounds in the interior. Noise-reduction measures also were designed into the floor plans as well as into the heating and air-conditioning systems.
The two-level, 42,000-square-foot CID school features distinctive masonry towers and Romanesque masonry arches and contains 20 classrooms, a library, music and drama room, art room, computer lab, discovery rooms, school offices and a gymnasium with a regulation-size basketball court. The facility also houses the Joanne Parrish Knight Family Center, offering a homelike atmosphere for families with newly diagnosed infants making their first contact with CID. The facility is both child- and parent-friendly, featuring one-way observation rooms, colorful, child-sized furnishings and living room, dining room and kitchen space.
In 2000, the CID school building received a 2000 Regional Excellence Award from St. Louis
Construction News and Review and a Construction Keystone Award for Partnering Excellence from the Associated General Contractors of St. Louis. In 2001, the Landmarks Association of St. Louis named the CID campus one of the city's Eleven Most Enhanced Sites. In November of 2003, the CID school received an Impact on Learning Award from
School Planning and Management magazine.