Hingham High says 'Hola' to a new language lab

By Jessica Bartlett, Town Correspondent

Hingham High is finally revamping its 10-year-old language lab with a $56,029 upgrade that includes all-new software for the lab, headsets for every station, a teacher workstation computer, training, and free maintenance for one year.

The bid was awarded at a School Committee meeting Tuesday night to Chester Technical Services, which initially proposed the project at $61,729. Because the high school already had an instructors station in the lab and won’t need a replacement, the price was dropped.

After the first year, a two-year warranty will cost the school an additional $6,292. The cost of that will be split through fiscal 2012, with begins next July 1, and fiscal 2013.

Money for the renovations will come from the current fiscal year's capital budget in the amount of $55,000, with supplemental money from the Foreign Language Department’s equipment repair account, for $1,029.

The software itself will have about six or seven upgrades a year, all of which will be automatic.

Although the lab is getting many upgrades, the computers in the lab will stay, seeing as they were purchased a few years ago and do not need updating, said David Killory, Business Manager for Hingham Schools. .

According to Killory, the language lab has been a problem the town has been eager to fix for some time.

“[We’ve had] problems with the current lab, servicing them,” Killory said. “[Problems] happen all too often, and certain stations aren’t working at all.”

Although it hasn’t happened yet, Killory is afraid that prolonging the upgrade could also mean bigger problems when it comes to improperly working stations during AP exams.

Judy Rielly, the Foreign Language Department director, agreed that the lab was a much-needed upgrade for the department.

“Right now, we have about 1,000 students using that lab once in a seven-day cycle. And there are nine booths that are down that cannot record. And that’s the guts of foreign language,” she said.

“This expands the language repertoire for all students, and even their teachers,” Rielly said.

Milton High School, Canton High School, Midway High School, Silverlake High School, and Newton High School all currently use this program.

The decision to go with the Chester program was influenced by the fact that all of these schools said they would buy the program again, Rielly said.

The lab is set to be installed as soon as possible. Installation will take up to one week, and the will be closed during that time.